I begin my 56th year as a classroom teacher in 9 days. I have already emailed my students a few times to help them get interested and excited about the upcoming semester (without, I hope, having them think I’m too weird). We all know that if the students walk into the classroom on the first day of the semester intrigued by what is to come, the odds are already in our favor for a great class. In these strange times, I’ll take every advantage I can get.
Even after 110 semesters of teaching (actually only 106 if you subtract sabbaticals), I still like to establish a “personal theme word” for each new upcoming semester. I’ve used “urgency,” “preparation,” and “minutes” during the last few semesters.
I’m not sure why but if I wander around inside my own head for a few weeks before my first class some word will pop up unannounced to guide my work. And that discovery helps me find a solid direction for what I want to accomplish. Maybe I’m like Ted Lasso who tapes the word “BELIEVE” up in the locker room as a reminder of how important attitude is to success.
In getting ready for the semester, I recently tried out a few of these theme words, but they all struck me as contrived. They sounded like they came from a thesaurus rather than from inside my head. Finally, this afternoon I had an epiphany (a word my first year English teacher loved back in my undergraduate days). I suddenly knew exactly the word I wanted to focus on for the fall of 2026 and that was “POTENTIAL.”
I currently have 52 students signed up for my three classes and, counting me, that is 53 people who will be starting the semester together on August 24. For better or worse, it will all be over in the middle of December. That’s not very long if we really hope to make a difference (that’s a sentence I repeat a lot to myself). How much better will each of us be at the end of the semester? Is there any other question worth considering? I got into teaching because I wanted to help change people.
What if we somehow could measure the ultimate potential for improvement for those 53 people between now and mid-December? I suspect the sheer volume of potential in any group would be staggering. It is easy to see that, at their best, humans are brilliant creatures. I could give a thousand examples from spaceships to the Great Wall of China. If we reach our potential, nothing can hold us back. It’s too easy to underestimate ourselves (and others) and that’s never helpful.
I am not talking about class grades which are rather artificial measures. I am talking about the potential to become brighter, kinder, harder working, and more thoughtful human beings. For me, class is never just about teaching the subject matter. I am talking about something deeper. I am talking about students (and me) having the confidence to realize what we are really capable of doing. I am talking about students (and me) having the ambition just to see how much better we can become by putting our minds to it. What can our potential lead us to accomplish over the course of the fall semester? (What a wonderful and scary question?)
How do we as teachers help our students reach their potential? Our lives these days are full of thousands of scary distractions. Given that huge wall of adversity, what would the best version of these 53 people look like in 3 1/2 months? That might be the most important question we ask each of our students to consider. It might be the most important question we ask ourselves. Once we assess our potential the only other question becomes obvious: How do we get there? Easy answers do not exist. We have to observe and think. We have to experiment and evaluate. We have to be daring but not foolish. We have to view students as individuals and not as a group.
Over the past 14 months, a lot of my life has been led by a short quote I read in a book last summer, “The world is not waiting for more of the same.” I firmly believe you can go a long way toward reaching your potential with those 10 words in your mind.
Let me make a suggestion. On the first day, get to class 5-10 minutes early. Pretend to be doing something like checking your notes. But you are really looking closely at the face of each of your students. Don’t think of them as students. Think of them as human beings struggling to become mature, thoughtful, and happy adults. Think of them as little balls of potential that you are going to help as they try to envision and achieve their possibilities.
Make a commitment that you will help each student’s potential blossom over the next few months. Not just the top of the class or the bottom of the class, but that you will make a positive difference for every one of those people. That is extraordinarily difficult, but it is not impossible if that is your guiding thought for the semester.
Okay, that’s my word for the fall semester of 2026. What is your theme word going to be? “Potential” is what I found in my head. What’s in your head?
**
If you would like
a free download copy of my book “100
Conversation Starters to Develop Student Critical Thinking in Intermediate and
Financial Accounting Courses,” it is available at the following
link. As I type this, it has had 645
downloads in the past 6 weeks.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/400/
If you would like a free download copy of
my book “Transformative
Education: How Can You Become a Better College Teacher?” it is available
at the following link. As I type this, it
has had 5,370 downloads in the past three years.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/
**
If you would like to watch my 11 minute
TEDx talk about “Transformative Education,” it can be seen at the following link. It just passed over 2,300 viewers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s
**
Heck, since I’m giving stats, I’m thrilled
to let you know that over all 349 of the teaching essays in this blog, there have
been a total of more than 1,099,000 page views.
Thanks to everyone who helped to spread
the word.
No comments:
Post a Comment