The Unexpected Difference

By Rebecca Snyder

To teach is to learn twice.

~Joseph Joubert

For a statewide teacher forum, I was asked to create a table presentation characterizing my classroom, my students, our district and community. As an avid scrapbooker, I immediately relished the idea of creating photo collages and carefully arranging artifacts and mementos that would illustrate the important work teachers do inside the world of their own classrooms.

So, for weeks, I sifted through file drawers and shoeboxes, searched in cabinets and in closets. I was hoping to find just the right prints or memorabilia that would capture the spirit and personality of my school and community — that would capture the difference I had made as a teacher. All through September, I unearthed photos of lesson activities and keepsakes I knew I had stored in a file folder in the back of one of those drawers. I asked my colleagues to help me find images or objects that would represent our most famous community members, like Mr. Rogers and Arnold Palmer, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who hold training camp nearby. By mid-October, I had found those things. But, I had also found something unexpected, something much more dear, and very rare.

I found pictures of Gavin who gave up two weeks as a high school senior one summer to help fifth and sixth graders craft puppets out of socks at elementary drama camp. I found notes from and pictures of Calvin whom I had taught for almost six years, and remembered how he always made sure every classmate felt accepted and valued. I found a résumé written by Carrie who supported herself without the help of parents, and who despite her often late night shifts, never missed a day of class. I found a worn copy of Robert Cormier's I Am the Cheese that Pete proclaimed was the first book he had ever finished. I found student-questions scrawled on slips of paper and Post-it notes. I found a copy of Macbeth in Portuguese that belonged to an exchange student who read it first in her own language, before reading it again in ours, just so she could be sure she wasn't missing something important in the translation. I found Kelly and Sarah; Mark and Abby; Matt, Justin, Laura, Morgeaux, and Dave. I found Erin, Cady, Bree, and Lisa; Lindsey, Charlie, Hilary, and Kate. Amanda, Taylor, and Nenny.

I found my students.

The students who had made me laugh. The students who had moved me with their courage and compassion. The students who had challenged me to question what I knew of the world outside my own hemisphere, the students who inspired me to expect more from them and from myself.

What I found was evidence of a real difference. Not the difference I had made in their lives, but the difference they had made in mine. There I was, standing at my filing cabinet reviewing lessons — not those I had taught, but the many I had learned. Lessons in strength and perseverance, humility and honesty. Lessons in laughter, joy, and grace.

I came to teaching, as most teachers do, hoping to touch the hearts and minds of my students. What I never expected was how powerfully they would touch mine.

In September, my table presentation was an assignment, and I went about completing it as a professional task. In October my work became very personal, and served as a wonderful reminder of just how powerful a place a classroom can be, not just for students, but also for teachers. And, when I arrived at the forum with my presentation in tow, it wasn't a display of any difference I had made, but the difference my students had made. It didn't display lessons of my design, but my students' lessons, the ones they had taught me. I looked around at the other displays and found a similar theme. I didn't see graphs or report cards. I didn't see unit plans or portfolios. I saw stuffed animals, hats, pumpkins and patches — electronic photo albums, smiling faces, storybooks, and even fishing flies. I saw keepsakes and mementos that spoke of caring, compassion, motivation, and enthusiasm. I saw tokens of kindness and souvenirs of bravery and creativity.

I saw a real difference — the difference made by students who have walked in and out of our classrooms, in and out of our lives, in and out of our hearts.

In making lesson plans, all teachers have to ask "What will this day's lesson be?" The question begins with the students as audience, but it's a question that I now turn on myself. Today I walk through the door of my classroom ready to teach, but also eager to learn from the young people who are excited to teach me about them — their insights and interests, problems and anxieties, hopes and fears. We teachers are masters of prepared lessons, but should always appreciate that the unexpected lessons, both simple and profound, effect the most powerful difference, for they make students of us all.

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