Aha! Now I get it!—that moment when the light bulb goes on and a profound understanding strikes you hard! I am sure you have had many of those as teachers. Can you remember your first? The one where an interaction with a student led to you understand how and why an instructional techniques really worked or one where you realized that what you did absolutely did not work—the lesson learned and the AHA! Moment?
Think back to what it was like the day before your first day of teaching and then to the first day of teaching. Now, remember the first time a student told you that she was NOT going to do what you had asked. Or, cried. Or would not speak to you. Did you have all of the information/tools that you needed to respond? Or did you wonder to yourself “Now, what do I do?” Where did you get those answers? From others? From years of experience?
We think you have many of those experiential answers, and because you are experts and have the skills of conveying information to others, we want you to share your Aha! Moments with us for publication in a book of stories and lessons learned. We have stories now; some that will just make you laugh, where you can hear Homer Simpson say, “D’oh!” for their simplicity or where you might wonder, “Why didn’t I see that coming?” Then there are those where the teacher lost a student, not through death, but lost an important relationship that had been built over time due to an innocent remark or misunderstanding.
We want you to contribute your Aha! Moments to a book called What My Students Taught Me to help first year teachers and the pre-service education students so that they will have a fuller educational “toolbox” of strategies for their first day and year of teaching. And veteran teachers will appreciate the stories too—stories that encourage them to reflect on their own practice past, present, and future.
For more information and submission guidelines please visit http://nvwp.org/teacher-writers/ or send an email to ahamoments@verizon.net. If your story is published, you will receive full recognition as the writer of the story and as a member of the Northern Virginia Writing Project.
Thank you!
Vaughn Lauer
Chuck Cascio
