Becoming the Best Teacher in You

In this chapter Kelli shares her story of becoming a highly effective teacher (HET). Her journey produced an expanded view of herself, her students, and what it means to be a teacher. With this expanded view came the capacity to do things she could not do before. Based on Kelli’s story and the stories we have heard from more than 350 other exceptional teachers, we lay out two overarching perspectives of teaching: one we call the directive perspective and the other we call the co-creative perspective. The first is foundational. The second is elusive, but it paves the way for a teacher to accelerate learning and to change lives.

In the exchange above, two things became immediately clear about Kelli. First, she is a person who does not tolerate low expectations. She expects a lot of herself and a lot from others, even interviewers. This also extends to her students. She expects them to do things they do not believe they can do.

Second, while Kelli is a master of her content, she does not believe that her job is only to transfer mathematical information to students. Math is simply a reason to be with her students. She believes that her real job is to create a desire, a hunger, and a love for learning. She expects that her students will leave her with an expanded sense of themselves. They will leave as empowered people, able to learn in any situation.

While Kelli places great emphasis on growth and achievement, she balances it with an equally intense focus on forming and maintaining relationships. Within a few minutes of being with Kelli, we felt like our conversation mattered a great deal and that we also mattered a great deal. We felt both valued and stretched by this woman whom we had just met. She told us that when she was a student, school was a place where you went to “have things done to you.” In contrast, Kelli places greater emphasis on doing things with her students.