Chapter 4: Tiffany
I’m publishing my newest book, My Vital Lesson — It’s the People; It’s Always the People one chapter at a time here on jaimerichards.org.
“Alexa, who’s the coolest teacher in Amarillo?”
Amarillo is in the Texas panhandle. Having never been there and knowing no one, I turned to AI. The first name out of her artificial mouth was Tiffany Ryals.
I emailed Tiffany at her school, Humphrey’s Highland Elementary, and she agreed to meet with me.
Her vital lessons were excellent.
1. Learn to code.
2. Take responsibility for your learning. I.e. stop relying on teachers to do it all.
Tiffany told me the story of a first grader who, three times in one week, got lost while trying to get to his classroom. Each time, he'd stand in the hallway crying, waiting to be rescued.
Some adult would pity him. "Oh, honey, let me help you. Come with me."
No! Teach the kid how to find his classroom without help. He can do it!
Let's instill in students that getting educated isn't only a teacher's job. It's the student's, too. "What are you doing to enhance your learning?"
Relying on the teacher hero is a mistake. Besides the danger of becoming teacher-dependent, it assumes all teachers are fabulous. Sure, if you're lucky enough to get a great one, good for you.
But what if you get one who isn't the best, then what? That class, that school year is tossed away? "I didn't learn anything. My teacher sucked."
If you get an excellent teacher, wonderful. If you don't, it doesn't mean you can't learn. If you're curious, if you ask good questions, if you're hard working and determined, you can learn in any situation. It's difficult. But it's possible
Tiffany proves it. As good as her vital lessons were, what I'll remember most from our meetup is Tiffany's story.
How in the heck do you go from being dropped off at a train station at 14 to becoming Teacher of the Year?
If you’re fortunate and have a devoted teacher (or parent), cool. But what if you don't? What if you're like Tiffany? Then what?
It's hard to acknowledge (since I’m a teacher), but the trend now is toward self-education. We can learn almost anything without a traditional teacher. But we’ve got to believe we can.
That won’t happen, though, unless someone believes in us. Not say it. Prove it. Prove it by not bailing us out. Prove it by allowing us to struggle and figure it out. For Tiffany, it wasn’t a parent. Her high school teachers believed in her. Believed that being born into a flawed family wouldn’t break her.
And it didn’t.
__________
After I said goodbye to Tiffany (always hard, especially when you know that you probably won’t cross paths again), I noticed this hoop at Amarillo’s Glenwood Park.
A messed up, chain net.
I’m not mechanically inclined. Definitely not mechanically trained. So just looking at a rim in this sorry condition induced anxiety. Could I fix it?
It wasn’t easy. The chain was beyond repair, which was fine. I’d replace it with a nice, nylon net. The problem was the chain net was permanently fastened to the rim. I’d have to cut it down, and I didn’t have a tool for that.
A friendly man at a the hardware store suggested a small wire cutter. It didn’t work. So I went back and got a bigger one. It was probably overkill, but I figured better too much than not enough.
It did the job. It was far from a mechanical feat, but because it was hard for me, both physically and mentally, it was gratifying. Doing even the simplest hard thing, even if that thing wouldn’t be hard for most people, is still a micro confidence booster. Do you think doing a super hard thing — thriving, despite a traumatic childhood, for example — can be a macro confidence booster? The kind of confidence booster that enables you to become the coolest teacher in Amarillo?
Lessons from Tiffany
* Kids can do more than we give them credit for. (So can we.) Within reason, allow struggle. Encourage struggle.
* Time after time, I find that when parents aren’t there, a caring adult — an extended family member, a teacher, a coach… — can be a life-saving surrogate. Tiffany is proof.
