I'm From Cottonwood Trees

Where do we come from?

Though we are all bound by the borders of the United States, we all come from somewhere different, and those differences cause a true diversity of experiences. Even while I lived at the topmost house on a little cul-de-sac in a small town in Colorado, I came from a different place than the boy in the blue house down the street. Even while we spent summers together, riding our bikes and playing video games, we experienced our childhoods differently, and those experiences shaped our adulthood. There are a lot of assumptions we make based on where our students come from, and those assumptions can color the way we understand our students.

I've only had a handful of teachers who truly strove to understand the events that shaped the my childhood and influenced the type of student I was. Those teachers were remarkable support systems when schooling got difficult. Ultimately, I believe we all want to be those types of teachers, and create strong relationships with our students.

Perhaps the hardest task we have as teachers is to make the time to achieve this. We want to get to know our students as individuals, to understand where they come from, and to understand how their experiences influence what they experience in our classrooms. There are many expectations for teachers to meet standards, to prepare for standardized testing, and to meet our own lesson plans. In addition to these, we each want to know our students as individuals. Obtaining this knowledge means we can help better understand their ups and downs and to avoid making assumptions about where our students come from.