#Teach180

I was fortunate to attend the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) meeting this summer in Washington DC. Usually held in July, this year it was in the beginning of August and ended the day before I started a new school year. As stressful as it was to start the day after cross-country travel, it was just the kind of pedagogical jolt I needed to start a new school year. As always, the conversations with other physics teachers, of all levels, gave me so many great ideas. I had so many insights into other classrooms and attending an AAPT conference always makes me reflect on my own teaching choices. 

One of those conversations was with Michael Lerner, who led a Q&A in the K-12 Teacher's Lounge. We were talking about my career, things that impacted me and our conversation reminded me of when I was a mentoring teacher for a new teacher credential candidate. I found having a student teacher in my room a very reflective experience. My student teachers would ask why I did certain things, asking about teacher moves and choices that were automatic but internal. Such questions made me verbalize my choices to explain my actions like why I'd asked which question to whom or how I'd known to pivot the partner practice problems to an all class discussion. Having to say it all out loud made me consider those moves more, sometimes causing me to change my mind for the future but more often validating the choices I'd made and appreciate how much of my job was so nuanced. 

At the end of our conversation, I told Michael I wanted to do the #Teach180 challenge, to commit to sharing about my teaching each day for a year. Michael encouraged me to do it and we're both going to try it this year. #Teach180 is a hashtag for daily reflections about your teaching. At the very least I'll post on BlueSky but I hope to post some longer reflections here. I have had some struggles with teaching over the last 20 years (although I recognize my school community comes with a lot of privilege) so I've tried to be open about struggles I've had in different teacher communities because I think we have to normalize realistic teaching experiences. Sometimes we only get the highlights of teaching (think Instagram posts of classrooms that look like design magazines) or the lowest points (like reels ranting about students). Teaching is a joy, a calling and yet it is "just a job," although a tough one. 

I think the subtle choices we make, the tweaks from year to year that customize our curriculum for each new group of kids, elevate our teaching from a skill set to an art. But these teacher moves aren't always obvious. I hope that trying to write about these this year will help some other teachers develop themselves as "teacher artists." 

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