That’s What I Call Synergy
My daughter’s old enough that her school calendar syncs up with the high school calendar. Which means that just as I am trying to get my students to the finish line of the marking period and catch up with all of the paperwork that goes with it, my daughter has her end of marking period projects to do. And thus my wife and I spent at least half an hour last night soaking papers in tea in order to create an aged effect for a scrapbook project. (I’m not knocking the project, I think it helped my daughter think about the characters in the story she had read. It’s just that usually when I pour tea on a document, the immediate response is “Oh crap!”)
The schedule crunch is not always fun, but I will say that as my daughter gets older and closer and closer to the age of the students I teach, a couple things happen. One, my gray hair expands exponentially. Two, I find myself looking at more things simultaneously from the eyes of a teacher and of a parent. And I think those two perspectives, together, help me in each role. For another project, my daughter had to build a model solar home with some partners. Meanwhile, in my world history class, my students wanted to make models of the castles they designed on paper. Seeing what my daughter had to do helped me think through the practicalities of such a project – and made me realize that not every student would probably be excited by those practicalities, so I created alternate assignments for students who would feel more comfortable that way. (This also helped me avoid bankrupting myself to get supplies, which is helpful in my roles of husband and person-trying-not-to-faint-when-I-pay-the-credit-card-bill.) And as I’ve talked to my daughter’s teachers, who have been very supportive and helpful as she makes the adjustment to middle school, I get a reneed empathy for the students and parents who are making their own adjustments to high school.
Teaching and parenting are both tough jobs. It’s nice when they work together to help me get better at both.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.
Wednesday, January 23rd 2013 at 8:39 pm |
Becoming a parent made me a better teacher. I think there are plenty of wonderful teachers who are not parents, but the perspective shift made a huge difference for me. Also, I find myself striving to be the teacher I want my daughters to have. That’s a pretty high bar and it feels good to stretch to it.
I look at my students differently now. When I get frustrated or impatient I see my own girls and try to respond as I would want someone to do to them. I also look at my kiddos and think, “This is someone’s darling child.” I’m a lot kinder than I used to be.
Thursday, January 24th 2013 at 9:05 pm |
Yeah, I’d never want to say that you can’t be a great teacher without being a parent, any more than I’d say you can’t be a great parent without being a teacher. We all bring the advantages of our experiences to bear, and like you, my experiences as a parent have been extremely valuable to me as a teacher.
One drawback is that the exasperated humor I employ with my daughter to convey that I think something is a bad idea doesn’t always translate so well to students who don’t have to live with me every day, so I’m still working to keep the translator up to date. 🙂