The Teaching Paradigm That Prevents My Burnout

The future kind of sucks. I don’t mean that it won’t be good, or, at least, contain some good. I’m sure it will. I’m sure wonderful things will happen. I hope wonderful things will happen to me, and to my family, and to my students, and to my community. But I’ve realized as I’ve been planning this new semester of high school study skills, that the future really sucks as a motivator. 

I say this because most of the time, the future we describe to students is a lie, and they know it. A beautiful lie, but a lie all the same. It’s a lie because we don’t know what will happen to them or what they’ll do about it. 

We don’t know what college will be like if they attend. We don’t know what their employers will need or value. We have some predictions, some pretty good hunches based on experience, but we really don’t know. We could be totally wrong.

The future is also freakin’ terrifying when you really think about it. We talk about setting SMART goals and shooting for the stars, but when you really think about the future, it’s overwhelming. It’s like unrequited love. To ponder the future is wading into a pool in a volcanic crater to look for your lost keys. It’s longing to have done something great and fear of what you will have lost when you get there.

If we train students to live for that great big, frightening future, we aren’t teaching them to learn, we’re teaching them to do what is necessary to survive, to win, to dominate. We’re teaching them (even if we don’t say it) that the present is something to check off a list because meaning comes later. Now is just time to pass. 

If that’s how we train students to think, why should it surprise us if they cheat? If they don’t read the books? If they wander the halls or prefer playing snake over practicing math? We’re training a generation of Jay Gatsbys, telling them what matters is the green light, the one fine day. But not today.

It hit me once as I was walking through the halls of the high school and catching snippets of this and that lesson or activity that what should motivate us is that present. The present is awesome even when it’s horrific because we can do something with it. I can offer something in the here and now. 

I can give my students a chance to spend twenty minutes reading a gorgeous poem in ELA 10. I can give them twenty minutes to succeed at one math assignment in study skills. I can bring students into a happy group playing a game for just a little while. That’s what I can offer as a teacher. 

I lost a student my second year as a teacher. He was in my AP English language class. He was brilliant. I remember him holding his baby sister during parent teacher conferences. Then the next year, he was killed in a car accident. 

I write this because we can’t promise our students a future. We can give them a few hours of meaning and growth for 180 days of the year. That’s the job, and that makes me hopeful. It keeps me from burning out. It keeps me from saviorism. It keeps me from despair. 

And it makes me excited for another day of teaching, and, maybe, it could help our students too. What if we didn’t ask students, “Who do you want to be someday?”

What if we asked, “Who do you want to be right now?”