This year I have started my 6^thyear as a teacher in a brand-new school. As it is now November, we are almost half way through the 2^ndquarter and I finally feel like I am getting the hang of a new system, new students, and new culture. This school is much bigger than the last school I taught at, and I have many other teachers to collaborate with and learn from. At my last school I was only biology, earth science, and anatomy teacher, but now I am working with several other teachers that teach the same class that I do. This has been wonderful experience for me as I am learning to grow in my teaching pedagogy and adapt to a new way of doing things. Many of the science teachers in my department worked as biochemists, physical therapists, and environmental engineers before becoming teachers and I am so blessed to work with people with so much expertise in what they teach.

This has led my think a lot about who I am as a teacher. You see, the last couple of months have led me to compare myself with my new coworkers. Sometimes I feel so inadequate as a teacher. I never wanted to be anything but a teacher and I got my teaching license right out of college and started teaching at 23. I do not have my master’s degree yet and I have never worked in a science field. I feel like I don’t have the wealth of knowledge that my fellow teachers do and I have often worried about looking like I don’t know what I’m doing. I fear that I will mess up, that my students won’t learn what they are supposed to, and I doubt that I am a good enough teacher. I’ve tried to abandon certain lessons and ways I teach and tried to adopt what other teachers do.

At the same time, I sometimes find myself pushing back at certain lessons and content covered by my fellow teachers. I may not have experience working in the science field, but I have 5 years of teaching experience and I feel like I have learned a lot about how to structure clear and engaging lessons that students both enjoy and learn from. Sometimes I don’t want to adapt to what my new coworkers do and I want to teach like I always have.

However, I don’t think either of these attitudes is helpful. Neither doubting myself as a teacher nor being prideful in my teaching and resistant to change is going to make me a better a teacher and help my students. Lately I’ve been trying to do two things:

 

• Be humble and learn
• Stick to my teaching gut

 

I think there needs to be a measure of both humility and confidence in teaching.  I don’t know everything and there are many areas where I can grow as a teacher, but I do have lots of teaching experience and what works for one teacher may not work for me. It is ok to stick to my own teaching gut and say no to doing things that don’t work for the way I teach. Last month I tried a new way of teaching the structure of muscles in the way that my co-teacher did that just did not work for me or my students. They got very confused and I had to go back and reteach. However, I really like the format of lab reports other teachers in my department use and I’m using them every unit. There can be balance between learning new ways of teaching and sticking with what will work for you.

All-in-all I’m very thankful for my new school, my new students, my new co-workers, an opportunity to stretch and grow, and an opportunity learn more about myself as a teacher. As the year continues, I hope to continue to remind myself to stay humble and to stick to my gut. How about you? Have you had experience with this? How do you keep yourself both grounded and confident in your teaching when you doubt and compare yourself to others?