By Amanda Crane
Advantages Online Private School

January 21, 2010

Years ago when I began teaching, I asked my husband what my job meant to him as an outsider. What is the point of being a teacher? I asked. He very honestly and very simply said: To protect your students’ dreams. I don’t think I could sum up this job any other way. When I pull apart the layers of grading, emails, phone calls, and planning – that is the heart of it. That is what it comes down to. Protecting their dreams.

As an English teacher, I have an especially hard job. It is very common for students to have anxiety about their reading and writing abilities, which are inextricably linked. Before they hit send to submit their assignment, I can only imagine how nervous they are. My high achieving students are terrified they have a comma out of place. My struggling students fear they have not made sense or spelled anything correctly. They are afraid, and, sadly, someone made them that way. At some point during their academic careers, a teacher, administrator, parent or peer said something negative to them about their writing that changed them forever. Then it becomes my job to try and change what has been damaged in them.

It may seem that process is daunting and perhaps unattainable, but it’s not. All it means is to give consistently supportive and constructive feedback. It means checking in on them via e-mail just because. It means reaching out and commending them on an assignment when they least expect it. It means using emoticons to show how proud a piece of writing made me. It means making good on all my promises.

When new students enroll in my classes, I need to remind myself that they are young people filled with hopes. In fact, I don’t even need to be privy to what their aspirations are although I like it when they share. It doesn’t even matter if they claim to hate the very subject I love. It matters that they have dreams that need protecting, and I need to be in touch with their fears. The biggest gift I can give is being that teacher who will take care of them whether they ask for it or not.