Being Nobody

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us--you know!"
-Emily Dickinson

If you want all kids to feel comfortable expressing their views, it's important to check your ego at the classroom door. I haven't always been able to do this -- but when I start a course, I try to set a tone early that I can laugh at myself and that I enjoy genuine humor as part of learning. I usually try to break the ice by telling some stories that allow them to laugh along with me. From then on, if a day goes by where we don't laugh together, then I feel as though it didn't go as well as it could have.

I'll never forget my first year of teaching at my current school when a student known for her quietness in class wrote in her evaluation of me, "Thanks for not being scary." Kids are deeply involved in the project of figuring out identity, which as we all know, can be very stressful at times -- it is good to model the ability to not take yourself so seriously to relieve some of the pressure they feel all the time. They need us to be the adults -- and part of being an adult is not feeling like you have to prove something.