Completing The Circle of Sharing in Teaching

"Sharing, Sharing, Sharing" was a bulleted item in a recent Twitter list of tech habits teachers ought to have. Thanks for the reminder, I thought as I read it, but most of us have been taught that since way back when we all sat on our listening rugs in kindergarten. Sharing, we learned, is always important and is even sometimes rewarded with a pink sugar heart imprinted with magic words "Please" and "Thank You!".

When I was a new adjunct instructor, two communication arts instructors helped me survive my first classes. They freely passed along ready-made PowerPoints, creative narrative essay assignments and classroom activity handouts. They were also there to answer my countless and repetitive questions. At first I was shy about approaching two "real" full-time instructors, but was made to feel at ease when I was greeted by name with a smile and friendly word. They are the ones who welcomed me into the teaching profession. Sure, I ran across some curmudgeonly-inclined instructors who never look up from their steps and hold their lesson plans closer than their coffee-stained "Greatest Teacher" mugs. I still do, but they are the sad exceptions, not the rule in this business.

When I became a "real" instructor, other veteran teachers volunteered to teach a room of us bright-eyed newbies during our pre-semester boot camp. They openly shared tricks and traditions of the trade: keeping the syllabus efficient and correct, managing students who are having a particularly bad day, and showing us how to use WIDS, the massive state instructional support system. Each new instructor was also assigned a mentor by the college who helped tighten the nuts and bolts of our work and, more important, gave us the context of our work: answering questions about the culture and expectations within the profession.

Later, my mentors grew beyond the college boundaries as I was sent to state-sponsored classes in adult literacy techniques (STAR), adult numeracy theory (ANI) and adult basic education. Through these classes, my shared examples tapped classrooms of talented teachers across the state. And, on occasion when the college has seen fit to send us to regional and national conferences, the cross-pollination of shared ideas extends across a national range of advice, activities, programs and campuses. Whatever we find through these opportunities, we are prodded to share, share, share with colleagues.

Now that I have a few years under my teaching belt, the sharing roles have shifted a bit. I still learn a great deal from others informally and through conferences, but am now being called upon to nurture and support the work of adjuncts and colleagues. It's flattering but a responsibility that gives me pause.  So I guess the professional circle is complete as I carry on the practice of sharing that helped me so many students ago. The lessons I have learned do no good to others locked up in three-ring binders on my office shelf. I learned that way back in kindergarten.