Reflections on teaching, learning, and the children who keep teaching us 

After decades in the classroom, we have gathered stories, lessons, mistakes and, hopefully,  a little wisdom along the way. Between the two of us, there have been thousands of conversations with children, a handful of brilliant lessons, a staggering number of spectacular educational trainwrecks, small victories that went completely unnoticed, and more than a few  “What were we thinking?” moments. 

Beneath all of that, we have also carried a quiet collection of questions. What sparks a child’s desire to learn? Why does a strategy that works wonderfully for one student fall completely flat with another? And how much of teaching really comes down to carefully crafted lesson plans, compared with the human connection we build with the learner sitting right in front of us? 

Parents probably ask some of these questions too. They see their child at home; we see them in the classroom. Between us, we may catch different pieces of the same child, but none of us sees the whole picture. 

This blog is our space to think out loud and share some of what we have learnt along the way. As two seasoned educators, we are still learning our craft, still being surprised by our students and still discovering that experience does not necessarily make us wiser. It simply gives us more stories to learn from. 

What Years in the Classroom Have Taught Us 

Early on, we realised that a good lesson plan is no guarantee of a good lesson. We have both spent hours preparing what looked, on paper, like a wonderful activity, only to watch it fall flat in the classroom. And then there are the unexpected gifts: a sudden question, an unscripted discussion or a passing remark that somehow turns into the best part of the entire lesson. 

Over the years, we have come to recognise another challenge, particularly when working with students for whom learning has not always been easy or enjoyable. Sometimes the difficulty is not in teaching the skill. It is in getting the learner to want to learn it. 

How do we move a child from “I can’t do this” to “I’ll have a go”? How do we help a student who has experienced enough failure to start hoping again? And how do we gradually move them from depending on the teacher to taking some responsibility for their own learning? 

These questions do not have neat answers, and after all these years, we are rather sceptical of anyone who claims to have one. 

What we have learnt is that progress can be remarkably quiet. It may be a child who gets something wrong but, instead of pushing the worksheet away, tries again. It may be the moment a student suddenly recognises a pattern we have been practising for weeks. Sometimes it is no more than a small smile followed by, “Oh, I know how to do this.” 

Those moments are easy to overlook if we measure learning only by completed work, test scores or whether an objective has been ticked off. Yet we know that something important has happened. The child has begun to see himself or herself not as someone who cannot, but as someone who can learn. 

Perhaps that is one of the most important things we do as teachers. We teach the concept, certainly, but alongside it, we are also trying to develop the willingness to try, the ability to persevere and, eventually, the confidence to take charge of one’s own learning. 

And just when we think we have worked out how to do that, another student comes along and shows us that our carefully held assumptions do not quite fit. 

There is always another learner who refuses to fit the mould. 

The Little Eureka Moments 

Some of the most satisfying moments in teaching are also the least dramatic. They do not come with certificates or applause. Often, nobody except the teacher even notices them. 

Julie remembers one such moment with a reluctant reader. Reading comprehension, for this particular student, was something to be endured. He would do what was required, answer the questions and move on. There was no particular pleasure in reading and certainly no sense that books might be something he wanted to spend time with. 

One day, she chose a passage that ended with a cliffhanger. The class completed the questions, talked through the answers and eventually moved on to something else. 

As far as she was concerned, that was the end of the lesson. 

It wasn’t the end for him. 

The student went home determined to find out what happened to the character. He searched for the ending by reading. Nobody had told him to. There was no follow-up task waiting for him and no teacher reminding him to finish the reading. 

He simply wanted to know what happened next. 

For Julie, that was the real breakthrough. It was not that he had suddenly become an enthusiastic reader. One story does not transform a reluctant reader overnight. What had changed was much more interesting: for a brief moment, he had discovered a reason to read. 

It made us think about motivation differently. We cannot always make a child feel motivated. Sometimes our job is simply to create the conditions in which curiosity has a chance to appear.  A well-chosen story, an interesting question or a problem that refuses to be easily solved can sometimes do more than another ten exercises ever could.

We treasure such moments because we know how slowly change can happen. A student picking up a book without being asked may seem insignificant to someone outside education. To a teacher who has watched that same child avoid reading, it feels enormous. 

Sometimes, that small spark of curiosity is where everything else begins.

Wisdom, Misdom and the Things We Got Wrong 

After many years in education, it is tempting to think that experience automatically makes us wise. We would like to think that it does. 

But experience also gives us a long list of things we once believed with great confidence and later discovered were not quite as true as we thought. 

We have decided to call these our misdoms. 

Hidaya has a particular classroom-management story that still makes her cringe, although,  with the passage of enough years, she can laugh about it too. 

There was a lesson in which one student had apparently decided that cooperation was not going to feature in his plans for the day. He talked when he had been asked to stop. He refused to get started. He disrupted the lesson and seemed increasingly interested in discovering just how far he could push his teacher. 

She tried the usual repertoire: the quiet reminder, the look that experienced teachers develop almost without thinking, the firm instruction and, eventually, the threat. 

None of it worked. 

After one interruption too many, she raised her voice and went on an uncharacteristic tirade. The room went quiet. At the time, there was probably a small sense of satisfaction in that silence. Control had finally been regained. 

Looking back, however, the moment seems rather different. 

The student had pushed all the buttons, and eventually she had pressed them for him. He had managed to get the reaction he was looking for. There was no real victory in it. No prize for having the last word with a defiant student. 

If anything, it was a reminder that a teacher can win the confrontation and still lose the moment. 

That was one of the lessons experience eventually taught us: not every challenge has to  become a battle. Sometimes the most effective response is to pause, lower the voice rather than raise it, allow a little space and recognise when a student has drawn us into a game we never needed to play. 

It is humbling to admit it, but sometimes the honest reflection after a difficult lesson is simply,  “Yes. That student got me!”

That, we think, is where wisdom begins. 

The misdom is allowing ourselves to get ahead of ourselves. We are human. We will still get things wrong. But we can learn from them, laugh at ourselves and try to do better the next time. 

That is wisdom creeping in. 

Learning as We Teach 

In the business of teaching and managing classes, we have occasionally mistaken compliance for learning, silence for understanding and a completed worksheet for genuine progress. We have learnt, sometimes rather painfully, that knowing a great deal about teaching does not necessarily mean knowing what is best for every child who walks through our door. 

We believe that is one of the gifts of growing older in this profession. We become a little less certain. At first, that can feel like a weakness. Surely, after all these years, we should have the answers. 

But perhaps wisdom lies in realising that we do not. 

Certainty can make us stop looking. Experience, if we allow it to, can make us more curious, more observant and more willing to ask, “What are we missing?” 

So here we are: two seasoned teachers, still thinking, still questioning, still laughing at some of our mistakes and still delighting in those small moments when a student surprises us. 

We no longer believe that teaching is simply about knowing the right strategy, preparing the right worksheet or finding the perfect intervention. Those things have their place. But beneath all of them is the much messier business of understanding another human being. 

Our students have taught us patience, flexibility and humility. They have taught us that  progress rarely follows the timetable we have given it and that a small step forward may  sometimes be more significant than a large jump on paper. 

We entered the profession thinking that we were there to teach children. After all these years, we see the relationship rather differently. 

We teach, but we are also taught. 

The child who refuses to read may teach us to think differently about motivation. The student  who challenges every instruction may teach us something about our own reactions. The quiet learner who suddenly says, “I got it,” may remind us why we came into this profession in the first place. 

We suspect parents recognise these quiet victories at home too. A child finishing a page without giving up. Homework completed without a battle. A teenager stumbling, but choosing to try again instead of writing themselves off.

They may seem like small milestones, but they are anything but small. For a student who has spent years carrying the belief that they cannot learn, each small success can begin to chip away at that belief. 

Sometimes, that is where real change begins. What a child needs most is not another reminder to try harder. They need someone to notice that they are trying. Someone to give them a reason to keep going, and to believe in their ability to learn until they are ready to believe it themselves. 

We are still learning how to do that. After all these years, we still get things wrong. Our students still surprise us, challenge us and occasionally leave us wondering what on earth just happened in our classroom. But they also remind us why we are still here. 

We teach. We learn. We change our minds. We laugh at our mistakes. We celebrate the little victories. 

And we keep musing.