Making it up on the fly

Isn't it funny that we have to go to college to be "certified" to do certain jobs - like teaching? It's funny for a few reasons. The first is that "certified" and "qualified" are two different things. I have known many paraprofessionals who are more qualified to teach so students can learn than the teachers in whose rooms they work! Secondly, most of the learning for a job like this happens - on the fly!

We really are just making this up as we go along. There is little in a book that can prepare you to figure out to accommodate for everyone's unique needs... there is little anywhere to prepare you to figure out that everyone has his or her own story and the ethical thing to do is to honor each of those stories. There is absolutely nothing in a book that can prepare you to hear about the horrors some students go home to at night.

Besides learning subject matter, a degree in education really says more about the fact that you are willing to stick with something for the duration. The real test of a teacher's mettle is actually in the classroom. I think it was Steve Bennetts who said, "everyone should have to teach for at least five years in junior high - if you can survive that, you can survive anything!" I know I learned a ton teaching middle school. I learned to laugh with kids. I learned to laugh at myself (although to be honest, I had THAT down long before middle school!) I learned to roll with the punches. I learned to switch directions in midstream if something wasn't going well. I built a big bag of tricks and loved using them every day!