authenticiKEY

Wanted: the OG Mrs. Davenport.

Have you seen her?

Sadly, I don’t think I have in a while either.

I knew moving away from urban education would have reverberations. Some I predicted; some were unpredictable yet unsurprising.

But I fear in some ways I’ve lost myself in the transition.

A question I am holding at the center of everything lately is:

What does it mean for me to be authentic as a teacher?

It is different from this chameleonizing.

It is different from this acquiescing.

It is different from this flatlining.

It is different from this.

At the end of the year, I administered a survey to my students. While the results were overwhelmingly positive, I of course do that thing where I focus on the not so positive. And one of the results that sticks in my gut the most is in response to the prompt I feel connected to Mrs. Davenport. This was one of my lowest scores! This used to be my forte! This used to be my everything!

Oh my teacher heart hurts.

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on that data point lately. (I’m grateful for some soulfull colleagues who helped me through this process: thank you Nikki & Andrew!) Both of them brought me to authenticity. What that means? For me? How have I held true to who I really am as a teacher? And where have I compromised? What is the state of my teacher heart?

So far, I’ve come up with the following authenticikeys (see what I did there?!):

1. Play to my strengths & successes. I know I can move students academically with Socratic seminars. I know the value of a shared reading experience. I know how to engage students with a course rooted in the content and not just the skills. I know stories matter. I know a class is much more about energy than anything else. I need to believe in and do what I know works.
2. Honor growth over regime, process over product. I have been a little duped by the standards movement, I admit it. I have bought in line and sinker. But in some ways, I fear the more I’ve adhered to that philosophy, the less I’ve seen students actually grow. When it becomes about one finish line, no differentiated paths are celebrated. A student’s comment on a survey echoes in my mind as I type this: “I didn’t grow in my writing. I grew in her version of writing.” Ouch. I need to honor the process, the little victories. I need to be creative and innovative so that each student feels shiney. I need to be more holistic in my approach. I need to reclaim what “assessment” means to me and my students.
3. Channel my fierce mother & believe in myself. I don’t like conflict, so I give in. I have used alignment as a security blanket. I worry about being questioned, being doubted, being challenged. I need to practice what I preach: the trite feedback I too often give my students of “take risks.”
4. Let go. Be playful. I have a drastically different relationship with my upperclassmen than my underclassmen. And in some ways, this is intentional. But, in some ways, it is damaging. I don’t feel like myself in my grade 9 classroom. I don’t think they know me. I don’t really know them deeply. And as the survey said, they don’t feel connected. So… it’s not working. I need to soften with them, with my approach.

I recognize there a lot of ways this post could be misconstrued. I recognize that I am riding a swinging pendulum back from the following-sheep side. I do not think the other side of rogue-independence is healthy either. There has to be growth; there has to be balance–always.

But I have to be me. I need to be me. For my efficacy. For my teacher heart.

For my students. For whom I want the freedom to be themselves.

Authenticity permits authenticity.

Authenticity inspires authenticity.