Golden Circle

Simon Sinek’s TED talk focused on what he called the Golden Circle of Why, How, What and the importance that businesses work “from the inside out,” meaning that they convince the world that they are buying not what they make, but why they make it.  The same is true for teaching.  I make a concerted effort from the beginning of each school year, and again at the beginning of each trimester, to show students that I am more that just what I do.  Too often it seems that students just see their teachers as a person fulfilling a role.  “That guy’s my English teacher.  She’s my music teacher.  He’s a math teacher, I think.”  To teach “from the inside out,” in my opinion, begins with showing students that you do truly care about their education, their experience, and their overall wellbeing.  I teach from the inside out by injecting as much enthusiasm into everyday as I possible can.  I like to believe that the students are having fun when I’m having fun, so I try to have as much fun as possible, while still tackling the major concepts of the day.  I want the students to believe that the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing as a chosen profession is just happenstance; I am doing what I do because I like it.  It’s enjoyable for me.

        I teach a lot of Geometry.  Like, a whole lot.  Every term I’ve taught at my current school I’ve had at least one section of Geometry.  Geometry, more than any other math course, focuses heavily on logical thinking.  Not just, “Can you solve for x,” but “What is the reason that you’re doing what you doing in the first place and can you justify why you’re doing what you’re doing?”  Heavy stuff, believe me.  Student complaints always increase greatly when we start doing geometric proofs.  If, then statements.  Logical thinking skills.  It’s not surprising for two reasons:  First, it’s different than anything they’ve had to do ever in their scholastic careers and that makes any endeavor more difficult. Second, they’re high schoolers and logical thinking is not their forte.  What I try to do is instead of focusing on what we are doing, is to focus on why we are doing it.  A geometric proof is an exercise in logical thinking and a great way to get students to see connections between seeming disparate ideas.  A geometric proof is an excellent way to help students draw conclusions from given or inferred information, something they will all have to do in their lives outside of high school.  It’s not always successful.  I would say that most of the time, students see geometric proofs as horrific rite of passage that every student must pass through to say to the world, “Hey, I took Geometry and I didn’t die!” But, every once in a while I’m able to convince students that what we are doing is more than just the sum of its parts.

        My communication with my students is (hopefully) evident by my passion for what I am doing.  As previously mentioned, I try to teach everyday with as much enthusiasm as possible.  I do my best, as we all do, to stay in as much contact with parents as possible, especially the parents of students that are struggling more than others.  If parents see that you are communicating with them on a regular basis there is a greater chance that they will see that your passion for teaching is more than just a job with a modest paycheck.  With my colleagues, I try to engage in as my lesson planning conversations as possible.  Our PLC time has given us some time to accomplish that, but not as much as necessary.  I know that I could sit and talk for hours about the best way to teach biconditional statements as definitions to Geometry students, and it’s those conversations that convey to my colleagues that I’m here to do the best job I can because I love what I do.