According to Google Maps, it is only about a six-mile drive. But this is Boston, and there is no good way to get from our neighborhood across the river to Cambridge where I teach. On a good day, it can take half an hour. Sometimes on the way home it clocks in closer to 90 minutes.
For the last four years, I have been making this trip with Theo, my teenage son, who attends the school where I teach. I had hoped that having some trapped parent-child time in the car might be a good thing. Maybe I would get a good sense of his day, and we might have chances to talk about whatever was going on. That has turned out to be true. Since Theo controls the music, I have also learned to appreciate Mac Miller, which was a less expected outcome. But what I really didn’t anticipate was that this commute would turn out to be the best professional development of my career.
I have found myself quoting Theo regularly since he was in 4th grade. That year, as a math coach working with his teacher, I tried to introduce “menus” so that we could better differentiate instruction. Theo looked at the menu that had required items before the more fun “desserts.” He dismissed it immediately. “All this means,” he said, “is that I will never get to do anything interesting because I work slowly.” And he was right. From his critique of assessment scoring as including a “dyslexia tax” to his contention that teachers shouldn’t assign more work if they haven’t returned any “because I guess we don’t need their feedback,” he has a knack for simply stating a student perspective that adults often miss.
Having the opportunity to listen to Theo talk about the school day from his perspective — and realizing how different it often was from mine — has changed the way I think about the classroom. Once he told me that he had lied to his teacher who had asked if he had studied for a history test. I knew he had, but Theo told the teacher he had blown it off. The other option, according to Theo, “is to admit that I’m [expletive deleted] stupid.”
Theo isn’t stupid. Theo has mild dyslexia and some executive functioning challenges. I can’t begin to count the number of times teachers have assumed that he wasn’t trying or didn’t really care based on small mistakes that are a real challenge for him to avoid. From “good grief” in the margin for a spelling error to points off for leaving an assignment at home, unhelpful teacher judgments have been frequent for Theo.
School is a minefield for kids who do not fit our stereotypes of the “good student.” Feedback should be about how someone can improve, not about making them feel like they aren’t measuring up. Believing that you know a student well enough to judge them for inadequate “effort” is arrogance. Unfortunately, it is something I know I did often as a teacher. Theo helped me see that.
What has stuck with me the most, however, was something Theo said during his freshman year of high school. He did not get off to a great start, in part because it took him time to adjust to the demands and expectations of a new school. His reflection, however, was the contrast between some of his high school teachers and some of his middle school teachers. “The real difference,” he said, “is that some teachers are on your side and some really aren’t.”
I don’t know of a better definition of what makes someone a good teacher. If someone is on your side, both of you are working toward the same goal. Being on a student’s side is not simply giving help or being sensitive to who they are. It is less about whether they measure up to your standards and more about conveying your belief in their capability of achieving their own. It is a mindset that allows the vulnerability necessary for learning to happen.
Theo went off to college this fall, and I am now making the trip to Cambridge on my own. I’ve been listening to some audiobooks, and Theo made me some playlists so that my musical education won’t stop entirely. I have learned to use Snapchat, and I know that Theo and I will talk on the phone. I also know it is time for him to be off on his own, and I am excited for everything that lies ahead for him. I feel pretty certain that he will never choose education as a career, which is fine. But he’s been a teacher, nonetheless. We all learn so much from our children. I feel lucky that one of the things I learned from mine was how to be a better teacher.
This article appears in the December 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 106, No. 4, p. 48.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Goldman
Steven Goldman is a writer and teacher in Boston, MA, and has spent the last two decades as a math coach and curriculum coordinator.
