My students live in a different world than I do. Most of them live in a different city than me (I don’t teach in the same city my school is in). None of them go to the same church I do, which know is a fact since I don’t belong to a church. With a rare exception, almost all of my students are not the exactly same flavor of Asian that I am.
My own identity, the school I teach in, and the members of my community, have created a school that is a place where worlds come together. That is not case for all teaching communities.
I once had a colleague who taught in a school where all of the students were the same race, where almost all the students went to the same church. In many ways he said that teaching in this community was easier. There was a set of values that appeared to be shared by the students, and living in the community, and sharing facets of identity with including race and religion, led to a classroom which was a shared world.
In that situation, the responsibility of the teacher is to bring in the world from the outside, and to make the world something different. My situation is different.
My classroom is a place where worlds come together, and somehow they need to meld together into a universe, a place where these worlds can somehow co-exists. At times these worlds crash together because of the tension that comes with different, and other times we “initiate students into conflict.”
Sometimes I forget that the work of a teacher is about melding these worlds into a universe. It’s easy to get a procedure going in a school, get into a groove, and just get going with a music lesson. When there are bumps in the road, I don’t think about the worlds, instead, I too often simply focus on them not following directions or behaving appropriately. I don’t consider enough their personal, distinct, and separate world outside of school, where they spend the majority of their lives.
There are all of these goals and priority I have as a teacher. There’s instruments to teach, performances to put on. There’s composition skills, creative work, and dances to teach. There’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work integrated into the curriculum. Maybe all of these priorities would be better accomplished, if I take more time learn about these students’ worlds, make them feel more seen, and more known.
The work of a teacher is often filled up with to do lists with tasks like copying, lesson planning, and writing emails. However, the more important work is actually knowing our students, and making sure they feel known. This job doesn’t stop at knowing their names, it starts there and it never ends.
The thing is, that this is one of the most rewarding parts of teaching, and the most fun. Somewhere along the line, I forgot this.
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