Everything to Everyone
As a wife, a parent, and an educator I wear a lot of hats. I’m lucky to have a great husband who has a lot of patience and understanding with our kids when they are emotional or are having some anxiety. He steps in and seems to know what to say or do. I’m better at dealing with the physical discomfort or the kind of upset than can be solved with eating, a bandaid, or a snuggle. We are great at tag-teaming the parenting responsibilities. We rely on each other’s help at home. As educators, we need to rely on each other’s help at work also. We need to know it’s okay to ask for help when we need it and be willing to help others when we see a need. We can’t always do it “all” and that’s okay. You can’t be everything to everyone and you can’t be an expert in everything.
As a teacher, my forte has always been educating younger students. Put me in a Pre-K-2nd grade classroom and I know exactly what to do. But then, I was asked to teach 1st through 5th graders. I was confident I could learn the curriculum and help these students in most of the areas…. I wasn’t quite as confident with teaching 5th grade math. Can I do 5th grade math myself? Sure! But could I teach it? Not as sure. Wanting the best for my students meant asking for help. I asked the wonderful 5th grade math teacher if I could sit in on her lessons to make sure I was teaching the students in a way they would understand. I always love it when I get to spend time in other classrooms and learn from other educators.
While that math teacher is an expert at teaching math, I know I am an expert at things also. I have been told I have a lot of patience with my students (and hopefully with my own kids also). That patience can be a wonderful thing, but it can also get in the way when my students take advantage of it. Another teacher I work with is great at getting directly to the point with the students. Sometimes our students need a little bit of extra care and patience (that’s where I come in) and then sometimes they just need the tough love and the pointedness of my partner. And that’s okay. It’s okay that sometimes we step in to help the other person. As teammates, we have learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses and step in when needed. Sometimes the help is explicitly asked for and sometimes the help is given when my partner can sense it’s needed. It is normal to need help. Yes, you are the teacher of that classroom, but you are just one person. You aren’t expected to know everything all the time. It’s just not possible. You are human.
That doesn’t mean you get to give up, though. Just because you aren’t an expert at something doesn’t mean you can’t be. Or that you can’t get better at that thing. Asking for help is a way for you to learn from others. Just as we expect our students to learn and grow…we need to learn and grow also. If we aren’t getting through to a particular student, then we work on building that trust and that relationship with that student to understand them better. We ask a teacher that has had the student in their class for their insight. You might not become an expert on how to connect to that student, but you will get better at connecting with them and they will notice.
The saying “it takes a village to raise a child” was true when people lived in small villages and it’s true today. These days we have a lot of ‘villages’ or communities. We have our families, our friends, our schools, our workplace, and more. We need to learn to lean on each other in our villages and not be afraid to ask for help. It’s okay to say you’re not 100% sure on something and that you want to learn more from an expert (or just from someone who knows more than you). It’s okay to let your teammate (or other colleague) step in to help.
I may never be an expert on teaching all of 5th grade math, but I’m getting better and more confident at it. And I know I can go sit in on a math class to make sure I’m using the same language and strategies as the expert teacher. What are you an expert in? I hope you find what you are an expert on and are able to share your knowledge with someone in your village.
