{"id":1702,"date":"2016-03-20T19:24:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T02:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2016-03-21T03:38:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T10:38:51","slug":"first-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1702","title":{"rendered":"First Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15012.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15012.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1704\" \/><\/a>Teaching teachers\u2014it\u2019s what I thought about doing 20 years ago while finishing Ph.D. studies.<\/p>\n<p>If I teach 100 students to write, I reasoned, I will influence 100, but, if I teach 100 graduate students who will one day teach writing\u2014you do the math\u2014teachers of teachers influence thousands.<\/p>\n<p>But I ended up sticking with first-semester students at a community college, partly because I like being their introduction to college-level learning, and partly because of the role such an educator can play. There\u2019s a reason we remember first grade teachers best.<\/p>\n<p>Because those who teach first teach most. Not only is all (or most) of the material new, but first teachers (in college as well as in public schools) get a chance to shape the moist clay of student attitudes before they harden into recalcitrant habits. <\/p>\n<p>And first teachers do more than cover the subject matter. While Charlotte was teaching first graders, we used to compare notes.  We both encouraged study skills, time management and understanding \/cooperation between peers.  We talked of plans, hard work and hope.<\/p>\n<p>Parents are first teachers.  Last night I watched my kids with their kids, and I couldn\u2019t help but notice how much of their interaction was didactic. One doesn\u2019t have to be a professional educator to teach. Parents do it all the time, as do employers, managers, coworkers, even friends.<\/p>\n<p>And every one of my students fits in one of these categories. They are\u2014or  will be\u2014teachers. Which means I still get to teach teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Well, sort of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teaching teachers\u2014it\u2019s what I thought about doing 20 years ago while finishing Ph.D. studies. If I teach 100 students to write, I reasoned, I will influence 100, but, if I teach 100 graduate students who will one day teach writing\u2014you do the math\u2014teachers of teachers influence thousands. But I ended up sticking with first-semester students [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1708,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}