Growing Up As A Teacher's Kid

When your mom is a teacher, from a very early age, you know school in a different way than most of the students that come shortly before the first bell rings and rush to their “other life” as soon as the school day ends.  Teacher’s kids know what school is like before it starts, after it ends, and even on weekends.

Only a teacher’s kid knows the eerie haze of light over a school library at night or the hum of the lights in the gym on a Sunday afternoon as they take ten minutes to finally turn all the way on.  Teacher’s kids know all of the nooks and crannies of a school for hide and seek, and what it feels like to be the only kids on the playground, never waiting in line for a swing or a turn on the slide. They have gotten a soda from the teacher’s lounge and used the Ellison machine to cut out letters.  They can probably even unjam the copy machine all by themselves!

They also know the precise way to pull math worksheets out of a workbook so the perforated edge is clean.  They know how to sharpen pencils by the gazillion, and sort everything from books to construction paper.  They can prepare a math station or phonics station and check to be sure that all of the markers work and the glue sticks aren’t too hard.

They know that as soon as they outgrow something, mom will always have a kid who can use it.  Winter coats are a very highly valued commodity in the Midwest, so all of our friends knew to give them to mom too.  She always found a home for them.  Long before recycle bins, we knew to keep plastic containers, shoe boxes, and all sorts of odds and ends … because they could all be used in “the classroom”.

The rhythm of the school year becomes the rhythm of the whole family.  I did my homework while Mom did hers.  Parent-Teacher conferences and report cards were like Proper Nouns in our house.  We ate sandwiches for dinner a little more and knew Mom was busy.  Her first year of teaching, she had 75 kindergartners a day!  Thirty-five came in the morning and forty came in the PM class.  That was A LOT of parent-teacher conferences…twice a year!

Sometimes it means helping to create a Christmas for a family.  Rallying together to fill the wishes of a stranger and understanding how much more they need to know that there is a Santa than you do.  It means that no matter where you go, even on a vacation to Disney, you will run into students or former students who want to say hello.

But, sometimes this familiarity also creates an unglamorous glow.  When teacher’s kids start thinking about what they would like to be when they grow up, teaching is the thing they know the most about.  Other careers seem more mysterious and exciting, known only through television and maybe someone’s mom or dad.

So even though I had tutored younger children during high school, participated in a cadet teaching program and actually enjoyed helping mom for all those years, when the idea that I become a teacher was suggested, I didn’t even consider it.

When I left for college, being a teacher was the furthest thing from my mind.  But, as my classes became more and more like the job I thought I wanted, I got worried. I didn’t like it.  During a Christmas break full of angst and decision-making, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, my mom had just moved from kindergarten to first grade and invited me to help her with assessments.  As I met with each child in her room, delighting in each conversation, it occurred to me that teaching truly is a calling.  And it doesn’t give up.  If you are called, it will keep calling…and calling and calling and calling…until you finally say, “OK!  I’ll be a teacher”!

I’ll never forget how freeing it felt, back at the University of Illinois, to go to classes that were interesting.  I was happy to stay up until 3:00 am working on a project.  Seriously…happy!  I had found my “home”.  Even when my student teaching experience was really difficult, giving up never once occurred to me.  I just knew I had to get better, be better.  All of those years of living with an incredible teacher had shown me what a reflective profession teaching is.  I understood instinctively that thinking about my students every evening and on weekends was how I would become more effective and student-centered.

From my first day in the classroom, I have never, ever stopped loving the opportunity to walk through my school’s doors each day.  And now, I have two girls of my own who have been brought up as “Teacher’s Kids”.  They know the ebb and flow of a real school day, one that starts long before the first bell and ends sometimes right before I turn out my light.  They have played and helped, supported and encouraged me throughout their whole lives.  They were the first faces I saw, along with my husband’s, in our cafeteria, when I was announced as Indiana’s 2016 Teacher of the Year.

They are both in high school now, and starting to think about what they might like to be when they grow up.  We’ll see.  I just know that if either of them are meant to be a teacher, they will be.  The calling is something that can’t be ignored.  Teaching is one of the greatest joys of my life and I do not take a single day for granted. My hope is that no matter what profession my girls decide to pursue, that they love it as much as I love mine.   

Recruitment and Retention? A Solution!

Our country has a problem with recruiting and retaining great teachers for our children. While several reasons have led us to this point, thinking about solving the problem is the productive way to move forward.  Instructional Coaching is one solution to the problem.  Coaches help to retain teachers because they create individualized, personalized opportunities for them to be supported in their work.   Every teacher wants to be better every day, and coaching provides that chance! 

Coaching re-ignites a teacher’s passion, and supports them in improving their practice.  Serving as an instructional coach in reading and writing for the last five years has shown me that. In the same way that average athletes become great ones from coaching, coaches and teachers working together create innumerable opportunities to improve student achievement.  By nature, teaching is not always conducive to the kind of collaboration that can truly move teachers forward in their craft.  Swapping ideas is common, but truly reflecting, changing course, and doing whatever is necessary to reach a particular group of students doesn’t often come up in conversation.  Instructional coaches are what make that kind of teacher progress possible.  Teachers can choose how they would like to improve their planning, instruction, management, use of multiple intelligences, or assessment, and with a coach, improve instruction and student growth. 

All over the country, teachers are begging for individualized professional development that provides them with personalized growth opportunities instead of a “one size fits all” approach.

Coaching provides this.  In my current position, I spend 6 weeks at a time in classrooms during the reading or writing block.  I work with teachers of all levels of experience, from beginning to veteran, in grades kindergarten through fifth grade.  First, I meet with the teacher to set goals for our time together.  I challenge teachers to choose a standard they do not enjoy teaching, an area on the rubric, or a goal that feels overwhelming.  With two of us working together, I know we can do just about anything!  For the first few days of our time together, I completely take over the literacy block, including planning, teaching and assessment.  This helps classroom teachers to understand that I am completely vested in serving them and their students.  During this time, the teachers observe student learning, ask lots of questions, and we have conversations about what he/she is wondering, noticing, liking or disliking. 

During the next part of our time together, we take turns teaching and observing on alternate days.  This requires us to plan everything together, thinking about pacing, variety of methods used for teaching, and meaningful formative assessment.  The most growth happens during this time because we are working together to improve “our” student’s learning.  We are in the same boat, paddling the same way, and our relationship has moved to the point of open sharing, brainstorming and the willingness to fail forward together!

The last couple of days, I "coach out".  Slowly, the teacher takes back over, as I observe and take notes for the teacher about what is happening during lessons.  Conversations continue as the teacher gets final questions answered, tweaks instruction, and celebrates!  Once we have this experience, future collaboration is a natural follow-up to discuss planning, assessment, students and management.  Since coaching is not evaluative, the teacher and I have a true team approach. 

Coaching is helpful for all teachers.  New teachers are supported as they become consistent in excellent practice, while veteran teachers who are already effective have the chance to reflect on how to become highly effective.  It is a gift to have the time and opportunity to focus on how to turn good into better, and better into best.  As trends bubble up within a grade level or team of teachers, coaches can also lead meaningful, valuable collaboration to support multiple teachers in training.

When teachers feel supported in their goals to increase capacity, to engage learners, and to provide differentiated, meaningful instruction, they want to stay in the classroom. Coaches help great teachers to stay in the profession.