ad-free
Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-11-11
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJM6WUNDnhA
are you ready to go need to do that again been teaching for over twenty six years well enough to remove from Italy you are my favorite auntie to misli mom then it became chrisley you're like my grandma and I really didn't mind so much because already played one in real life right well recently you know what this is going I met the family one of my
new students the next day she came in I love Photoshop this picture arm I my family she came and said you know my parents said you remind them of my great grandmother so after I picked myself up off the floor I said I'm why and she said well she is to listen to the end I'm like I'm from Georgia I get that and she plays tennis
harm obviously in great shape so that that arm she's really funny hot might not as funny as me okay I'll go with that and she lives on a Gator farm and I suddenly realize I can relate to that too because I teach middle school yes I'm for the last eleven years I've been a teacher of what I call lovingly hormones with legs and %HESITATION I taught
before that elementary school for many years and never planned on my shadow darkening the doorway of the middle school classroom so I was asked as a favor to interview for my first job and I got there the principal said you know I don't know why HR sent you because you're not even certified for middle school I said I know right and even like Tom and she
said she laughed kind of and then I said I think you should pepper spray them once a day they'll need it sooner or later and after she picked herself off the floor from laughter she said you would be perfect for my students but really I disagree with it because they turned out to be so perfect for me I'm I know there's a lot of people that
did lots of educators teachers an audience Yummy we are people that work with kids okay thank you for being here I'm now I notice some of you probably still pretty new and maybe you haven't even lived as long as I taught this okay but I realize that there are people here they're young %HESITATION I have a secret I don't usually tell people have you guys to
get there's a lot of meetings in education I often say to myself but not out loud very often I hope I pass on and when those meetings because the transitional be so subtle I would even know it had happened I I do I don't say that very often but I do truly believe that on what we are doing is the most important thing most important thing
in the world I'm John Steinbeck writes about teachers and he says I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists and fat teaching is not maybe is the greatest of the arts because the medium is the human mind and spirit and then Steinbeck says rights three real teachers in a
lifetime is the very best of luck I'm here to tell you that I know the importance of those real teachers and not just because I'm standing in this position as a teacher today but because of what teachers meant to me I grew up in a small Georgia town where your Sunday school teacher was likely to be in your school the next day as your social studies
teacher and in that little tiny southern town their waltz the most buying group of educators that have ever lived on this planet and from my early years on those men and women taught me so much mostly outside the curriculum they taught me that I had value as a person and that I mattered they saw me as an individual and they saw something in me that they
believed in and made me believe in as well their classrooms are places of safety and security when I was a junior in high school my mom died and the evening after her funeral I was sitting and reading her bitch very over and over the reality of a life without my mom was just starting to sink in hard the door opened in my math teacher walked in
this is another secret I don't usually tell my students but I was a really rotten mass student and %HESITATION that didn't matter she didn't see me as a number or a school where that was going to increase our overall rating somewhere down the line you saw me as a person and she came over and she has held me in her arms it was teachers who took
me to grocery shop for my family when I've never I don't have any idea how to do that because I was the oldest they took me to buy my prom dress went on family vacations with them I was welcome in their homes through college past college and today lots of them Facebook friends because we're still cool like that %HESITATION Steinbeck says many things about teachers but
this one little phrase resonates with me more than any other if you are very lucky very lucky you may find a teacher well I was the recipient so much good fortune then and guess what its continued on in my children twenty six plus years I have learned one thing no matter who I teach the age children are children and they teach me more every day than
I could ever hope to impart them for instance you pretty for instance they've taught me that show entail it's important regardless of the age it could be a missing tooth or it might be a new piercing that the parents don't even know about yet but it's important because they're seen as individuals and who they are I've learned from my children that dramatic play can be just
as important to an eighth grader as it is to a kindergarten her because I think it's really a safe way of figuring out who they are in the world and let me tell you something if you don't believe this then humor I've learned about humor from my children I have learned when I ask the kindergartners to flip off the projector middle schoolers do something different first
hand first hand I have learned that when a kindergartners eyes me little notes say an Ole miss Lee you're the best teacher in the world it's the same thing as a middle schooler saying no Leslie you had a big it means that they know I see him I've also learned that phrase matters regardless of the age and I have some students that would be mortified with
much attention the so thumbs up is enough I have others that when I say the if they standing here with me did not allow Saudi jarabe good job good job you know you wanna do with me reading Jesus day JRB good job yeah good spot you don't say it you get the good ideas that gifted audience good job Mr gather he the Gennaro big good job
good job thank you good job Steinbeck writes about his three teachers he says my three had this in common they all loved what they were doing under their influence the horizons sprung wide fear went away and the unknown became knowable now I do realize that their people listening in the audience that on an education bless your heart so feel so sorry for you how truly do
but in spite of their differences we had that one common denominator the common core you know that's a buzz word in education today the common core but it's two thousand thirteen people my students have taught me about the common core since nineteen eighty seven they've taught me that if I reach common core first the common core is much more easily taught I believe we all as
humans have that need to be valued I suspected and accepted and seniors who we are that common core that we all have everyone office so yes we do stand alone I uniqueness or part of a team sometimes with a star sometimes we have a supporting role other times when the audience but regardless of our role the important thing is that we are seen and valued for
who we are and what we do education reforms are gonna come and go common core is likely because something else in ten years the common core has been here since time began and I'm here to tell you people that is why after twenty six years of education teaching in education I am still thriving and then there's me you you some teachers can thrive per twenty six
the head idea I'm looking forward to a whole lot more because I am able to see that corn my students and they find it in me every time now I leave you with this and at the risk of sounding like a hallmark card with a southern accent I I would tell you I believe this is true with all my heart every single person has the capacity
to make a difference now what you do this with me touch here and I'm a middle school teacher I can wait if not I'll do it okay I have lots of patients all right now just look around look around every single person this room has that inner core now and when we remember that when we remember that inner core everyone around us that is when real
