The Toughest Moments

We all know that there are so many aspects to good teaching and that a graduate school education, along with a student-teaching experience, cannot possibly prepare us for all of them. Teacher preparation does a pretty good job of at least trying to give us some tools for responding to the toughest moments of our early years -- a class that isn't listening, a lesson that bombs, or a student who isn't learning.

At a certain point, however, the nature of the toughest moments changes. We learn how to deal with the drama and the crises. We learn how to modify lessons on the fly to respond to a projector malfunction, a broken copier, or a group that can't get back on track.

The toughest moments for me, now, are ones that no one ever seems to talk about. What do we do when students are working on projects in class? They are moments of quiet drudgery but also of great possibility. We are not at the center of attention. We might have heard that we should "check-in" and "conference" with them. What exactly does that mean? How often should we do that?

It is hard to know the right balance between being active (and feeling like we're doing our jobs) and just letting the kids roll down each of their tracks. To what extent are my interventions helpful and to what extent are they just interruptions to make myself feel better?

These are my tough questions about my tough moments. There is nothing dramatic about them. They are the types of questions we never really discuss but in a project-based school are so important. At this point, I'm not concerned about whether I have what it takes to manage a discussion, help students analyze readings, or even teach a writing skill. I'm concerned about whether I have what it takes to do the right thing when they are in their most important moments of thinking and writing.