July is the perfect month for teacher conferences, and I’ve had the fortune of going to a couple. Every year, I get curious about the relationship between how teachers talk about what they do and what they actually do. On Medium, I explored these issues:

“Part of that is the way that teachers are built. If we’re doing the work, then we see ourselves as learners along with the students. Expertise is often foreign in that framework because we’re neither confident nor settled in that One Truth. We’re using and giving away tools so that the next generation might do better than us. There’s also an underlying imposter syndrome that happens when we get thrown in spaces with folks with more visibility than us (media) and more political power (policymakers, administrators) and we’re asked to give the totality of a given subject when we’re not prepped for such an event.

At the same time, when there’s a narrative gap, too many folks will gladly fill it for any number of reasons. Plus, if we don’t love up on ourselves, who’s gonna love us?”

Read and share my latest, please. I’d love to hear what you think.