#ReflectiveTeacher Blogging Challenge Day 4: The best part

What do you love the most about teaching?

So we were talking about The American Dream in Film & Literature the other day (God I love A Raisin in the Sun!), and we were talking about the kids’ dreams (and of course what would happen if they were deferred), and the question came up, “Was this YOUR dream?”

“How did you get HERE?” they asked. 

I told the story of Mr. Bancroft and The Great Gatsby–“when I was just a little younger than you,” I said. He was asking about our interpretation of some symbolic passage, maybe the scene where the sidewalk beyond Daisy looked like a ladder, when I suddenly understood that imagery was not just imagery. Mr. Bancroft said, “I’m asking because I don’t know. I’m asking what YOU think.”

“You can DO that???” I thought. “You can just ask questions and get new ideas ANY TIME YOU WANT???”

And that was it. That was my dream. Hanging out with people, picking their brains: communicating. 

“But I mean HERE. A SPANISH teacher,” one student–who had scraped by in Spanish II last year–said.

“Well,” I said, “it’s still about communication. And now I can communicate with even MORE people and get even MORE ideas.”

And I can help you do the same, dear students. I can help you do the same, thus exponentially expanding both your pool of ideas and mine forever.