That’s hard for me to write.
There are a lot of you.
Some of you are very, very good at letting me know when you need something.
You ask questions. You wave me over. You tell me you’re confused. You send an email. You announce to the entire room that you have NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I usually know how those students are doing.
Ha ha.
Some of you struggle out loud.
And then there are the rest of you.
You sit in class. You do what you’re asked. You aren’t disruptive. You probably turn in most of your work. If you don’t understand something, you may look around and try to figure it out yourself.
You might be doing great.
I hope you are.
But you might not be.
And that’s something I’ve been thinking about.
Because being a teacher means my attention is constantly being pulled toward something.
Someone has a question.
Someone needs help.
Someone is off task.
Someone has disappeared to the bathroom for an amount of time that suggests they may have actually gone home.
Someone’s Chromebook isn’t working.
Someone is having a terrible day and everybody knows it.
The loud things get noticed.
That’s just true.
But loud isn’t the same thing as important.
You can be struggling quietly.
You can be lonely quietly.
You can be confused quietly.
You can be having an absolutely rotten day while sitting politely in third period looking for all the world like you’re fine.
And I might not know.
I don’t like that.
I wish I could tell you that a good teacher always knows.
We don’t.
I can look around a classroom and notice quite a lot—but I can’t see inside 30 heads. I don’t always know that the kid who looks disengaged is actually overwhelmed. I don’t know that someone who didn’t do an assignment spent the night dealing with something much bigger than school. I don’t know that the student who seems perfectly comfortable is terrified to ask a question.
And at the beginning of the year, I know even less.
I’m still learning you.
I’m learning your faces and your names and who you sit with and how you communicate. I’m starting to recognize who jumps into everything and who watches for a while first. Who wants help immediately and who would rather struggle for ten minutes before admitting they need it.
But here’s the part I want you to know:
You do not have to create a problem to deserve my attention.
You don’t have to fail first.
You don’t have to get in trouble.
You don’t have to become so overwhelmed that somebody finally notices.
And you don’t have to be the loudest person in the room.
I want to notice you before that.
I’m going to try.
I’m going to get better at knowing when your quiet means I’m good and when it might mean I don’t know how to say that I’m not.
But I’m also going to miss things.
So if you can—and I know this is easier for some of you than others—help me.
Come stand by my desk.
Send me an email.
Ask if you can talk to me after class.
Tell me, “I don’t get this.”
Or even, “I don’t really know what I need, but I’m struggling.”
You don’t need to have the right words.
You don’t even need to know exactly what’s wrong.
Just give me a little opening.
And if you’re reading this thinking, Mrs. Parks, there is absolutely no chance I’m doing any of those things…
Okay.
I’ll keep looking for you, too.
Because sometimes the students who take up the least space in a classroom still need someone to make space for them.
And I don’t want quiet to become invisible.
Learning is why. 