A maturing tree with deep, deep roots
The students with their bright,
shiny faces, their inquisitive nature, and their eagerness to learn are looking
to us to nurture them and promote future healthy, well-rounded growth. We will be most successful if we remember to
look below the surface and take care of the whole student. Their roots were developed long before they
arrived in our classroom. We need to
remember that those roots are the source of their strength, what literally holds them
up. The student’s roots are hidden to
us; we will have to ask them to share them with us and with the rest of the
class. Think about what a strong forest
we would have with all of those intertwined roots.
The first year teacher, maybe
feeling more like a sapling than a tree, will still have that strong base from
their teaching education and their student teaching experiences. If they look for them, they will find
supports to hold them up in strong winds within their cohort, their new school,
or maybe even in a teacher forum online.
They will be able to reach down into their own root system to hopefully
find shared experiences with their students.
As they learn from their students, their successes and failures, their
continued research for better curriculum and better classroom projects, and
their constant conversations with their peers, the branches will grow stronger
and their leaves will become abundant.
The classroom will only provide a
good growing environment if the teacher(s) and the students work together to
make it rich with experience and safe for everyone. Imagine how strong and comfortable that tree
would be with everyone working to keep it alive. I can just see groups of children feeling
free to explore; some sitting in the shade reading, some digging in the dirt
and discovering what critters live there, some trying to determine how many
leaves there are without having to count them all, some high in the branches
making their own world of castles or spaceships, and some lying in the dappled
sunlight below the tree, dreaming and imagining the next big thing that will
change life as we know it.
