The power of a teachers identity
“I knew,” said one of those long-ago graduates to his sixth-grade teacher, “that it was time to move on from the dead-end job I had–because I heard your voice in the background saying, ‘life can be so interesting–don’t settle for anything else.’ ” This is a line from Deborah Meier’s book The Power of Their Ideas: Lesson for America from a Small School in Harlem . That sixth-grade teacher’s identity–her beliefs, values, morals, and world-view–surely drove her daily curricular decisions, pedagogical choices, and ways of interacting with her students. Her personal identity, as well as her past experiences in life and in school, influenced her professional identity. These identities, I think, were at the root of why and how she made her choices each day. These identities are why her voice and her message–and why he listened to them–were in her former student’s mind so many years later. Each of these three parts of us overlap and impact the other; our job is to be aware of it and reflect on...