Name? Leigh O’Brien
Current position? Professor of Education
How long have you been in education? 35 years (!), first as a preschool teacher and for the last 20+ years as a college professor
What’s a little known fact about you? I used to swim, bicycle, and canoe competitively, although as a rank amateur.
When does your job feel the hardest? When ridiculous external demands interfere with my ability to be with, know, and support students. What helps you get through those hard days? See below re recharging, but also commiserating with like-minded colleagues.
What makes your heart sing as a teacher? I love it when students say, often much after the fact, you helped me see things differently; you changed my life. Can you describe a recent day or moment like that? This doesn’t happen all the time of course, but it happens often enough to make me stick with the profession.
Who was your favorite teacher and why? Mrs. Bunnell, my fourth- and fifth-grade teacher. My elementary school tried something pretty radical for the time period – combining the “top-performing” students in two grades to work on projects and other meaningful curriculum over a two-year period. Mrs. Bunnell was our teacher and she helped us explore our worlds. But even better, every day after lunch she read us a chapter from Johnny Tremain; this was the highlight of the school day for me!
Five items you can’t teach without? My laptop, coffee, a shared positive moment (e.g., a joke or good news) to start the class, a belief in the transformative potential of education, & hope!
Three books you would recommend to a fellow teacher? The Challenge to Care, Nel Noddings; Teacher Man, Frank McCourt; & The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer.
Social Media/On-Line teaching tools: What are 2-3 sites that you use to support your teaching? What is your favorite APP you use as a teacher? I do use various sites, clips, and so on, but have no particular favorites.
Best teaching advice you ever got? Be yourself (closely followed by Err on the side of compassion), both provided by students
Advice you would give to a new teacher or something you learned that you wished had known earlier in your career? I’d say not be too hard on yourself. Teaching is so complicated and so challenging that rarely if ever does everything go according to plan; expecting the perfect lesson (or activity or field trip or…) is a recipe for disaster. If you can respond appropriately in the moment, reflect on the thing — or things — that went wrong, and learn something from the experience, you’re doing just fine!
What do you do to recharge? Read fiction & poetry, spend time outdoors, visit the ocean
Poem or quote that you love? “Digging,” Seamus Heaney
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