Just days ago, I completed my twenty-eighth year as a teacher—eighteen as a high school teacher of English followed by ten years as a professor of education.
And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach.
As a teacher, I am far from finished—and I never will be.
On this Mother's Day*, I want to make a statement to the many and powerful leaders in education reform, all of whom have either no experience or expertise, or very little, as teachers:
I don't need standards to teach, I need students.
