Real-time Reflection

So begins Round Zero. We've done the "Basic Training", took a week off, and are now beginning orientation to Connecticut TFA. Now that Institute is over, we can be social human beings again, with priorities other than sleep, lesson planning, and coffee (though I avoid coffee).

We meet again at the Sheraton conference room in Meriden, CT. Some of these people I saw every day at Institute, some of them I didn't see once. Some people I may have seen a couple of times but probably didn't recognize. After a breakfast of some sort of delicious eggy quesadilla-shaped breakfast burrito, our first charge is to reflect. Independently. Without a template!

What do I teach for? Why do I do this?

I do this because there are people out there who do not look at the world analytically, who do not ask questions. There are people who do not look for evidence, who accept ideas blindly, and who do this because they were never taught to "Be a Scientist."

I do this because students are not comfortable asking their teachers questions, and grow up into adults who are not comfortable asking their doctors questions.

I do this because when the media announce that new data show that cell phones cause cancer, people panic before thinking to look at the data, and at research methods. (I prefer the XKCD explanation about this particular phenomenon.)

I do this because even though I was not a particular good teacher at Institute, because I'm new at this, because I don't have the experience and the instinct, I still had a student follow me into a bodega around the corner from the school one day just to tell me thank you for being the nicest teacher he ever had.

I do this because they deserve better teachers, and I am not that better teacher yet. But I will be.