About this time of year eight years ago, I was a first-year teacher sitting in the purgatory that is hall duty. Between inspecting hall passes and greeting visitors my mind wandered to some dark questions. Why were my students so despondent? Why am I not reaching them? Is this career right for me?
I was teaching tenth grade students English and diligently following inherited wisdom to responsibly prepare my students for the state high school assessment. Sadly, for too long we centered on the minutia of crafting and organizing the five paragraph essays that were a part of that test at the time. Regrettably, we read and analyzed short, dry passages from stories. My students, as students are apt to do, were returning me the exact engagement deserved by the learning experiences I was offering to them.