My first day of teaching, I came to school feeling confident. I had a newly minted teaching certificate and a degree. I knew my subject area, I knew the standards, and I had spent two days working with the English Department chair, Dr. Racky, who prepped me on the intricacies of the curriculum. I was ready, and I just knew my students would learn because I could teach. I thought that I knew it all.

The bell rang and 27 students walked into the room.  “Please sit in alphabetical order,” I said – but they didn’t listen to me.  Not listening was a recurring theme.  They didn’t listen to me. And I didn’t listen to them, either. 

That year, I taught five sections with 137 students total. Daily quizzes, weekly tests, monthly book tests.  Grammar and sentence structure was the mainstay of the curriculum.  There was not a grammatical formula that I did not know or share.  The students were quiet, so I assumed they were paying attention.

Then why did student after student do poorly in my class?  I knew they were smart, but they continued to do poorly on the assessments.  At the end of the first nine weeks, 14 of the 27 students in my first period class were failing.  There were only a couple of students doing “A quality” work. Over a third of all my students were failing.

I was incensed and disappointed with my students.  I was doing everything I was supposed to do. I spent long hours preparing for the next day. I thought I was doing my job. … But maybe I was missing something.  I began to realize that I had misplaced the responsibility of high standards onto my students, when the responsibility really was mine.

I met with my mentor Dr. Racky. He had observed me at work in the classroom. Luckily for me, he was a very perceptive man, and he knew exactly the kind of advice I needed. One of the things he told me rang true as I reflected about my approach to teaching: “You can have rigor and standards and students can be successful.  It’s all in the approach—let students save face, let students know that you care about them. And be patient.”

But the light bulb went on when Dr. Racky asked me, “Do you love those children as much as you love what you’re teaching?”

That was a thunderbolt moment. I did love those kids and I did care about them, but I realized I wasn’t letting them know it. So from that time on, I arranged it so students could be more engaged in their own learning.  I made my lectures, class activities, and assessments more aligned to what was relevant to them.  Students were able to increase their skills, understand the content, and interact with me as a teacher. I gave students multiple opportunities to be successful, I listened to them, and I responded to them as people.

When I reflect on the beginning on my first year of teaching, I think about the students who were failing my class, and the fact that I was the one who was failing them. I had not listened to the call of my profession—teaching the person first, the subject matter second.

Dr. Racky became my lifetime mentor, and even after I left the school, he and I would chat monthly. He was an excellent mentor – he made a commitment to my success, and by extension, the success of my students.  He helped me become a stronger teacher and deepened the learning for my students.

Dr. Racky passed away a few years ago, but I will always remember what I learned from him. He taught me what every successful teacher knows about their students—they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.