We think so much about what we need to do in classrooms, what is best for learning, what’s good for kids. We have conversations, collaborations, and thinking. But that point where the thoughts and real change intersect? It’s found in the power of a great mentor. You may not realize it while it’s happening, but one day you’ll look back and realize that you’ve changed. And you’ll realize that it was because another person helped you.
PBL, Project Based Learning, is definitely a buzz word in education right now. But, it’s more to me. It’s something I know and believe in. I will say that my start in education, being dropped into an urban school with no textbooks, 3 packs of copy paper, and 29 fourth graders who ranged from kids who could not read to above level-readers. It was like a two year boot camp of learning to teach from scratch. The world was our classroom. I relied on copies from books to add structure, but everything else, I had to create the experience.
After two years, and family relocation, I moved. The new school? There were books to follow, lists of objectives to check off. tests to focus on. Lots of tests. Suddenly, all the creating I had done? It didn’t matter. Learning was prescribed. So when I got the chance to move into a technology enhanced classroom where the focus would be on inquiry and collaboration, I moved down the hall. Running.
But I got so much more. I went through eMINTS training. A two year PD program to enhance my teaching. I had a mentor, a coach, and someone who has become a lifelong friend of mine.
So while I was ready to embrace the change in my classroom, it was hard. I had never learned about creating a team in my classroom. I hadn’t considered that the questions I was asking were able to open new doors. I had never once realized that veering off the beaten path of the reading basal was okay, even though the rest of the grade-level thought it was wrong. In fact, it was better than okay. It was authentic.
The textbooks I always felt uncomfortable ‘sticking to,’ could be shelved as a resource. The questions that kids asked started guiding what I did. The students were driving. The room was buzzing. The mixture of special education, gifted, and 2E students I had in class flourished. Supporting each other in a way that I still refer to as “magical.” Not because I was a superhero, but because I let go. And I only let go because I had support.
I look back now and I think, what did my mentor do that changed my teaching?
It’s easy to remember.
She listened. She suggested. She heard my fears. She answered my questions with guidance rather than judgment. She came into my classroom about once a month and got to know my kids and my style. She modeled everything in our PD sessions when we met about 2 times a month. Her feedback was real. Real-time, based on real-learning.
But I think it’s important to also think of what she didn’t do.
She didn’t judge. She didn’t tell me flat out that her way was better. She didn’t expect me to change over night. She wasn’t there to grade or evaluate me on a chart with a score. She didn’t focus on what I did wrong. She never failed to guide, never stopped supporting, and never stopped hearing what was needed to improve my teaching.
So when I look forward, and think about guiding teachers, supporting learning, and being the mentor that someone needs, I think about those 2 years that changed me and my teaching. And I’m grateful for that time. Because great mentors? Their support reaches far past the day or the year that you receive it. They change you.