the truest thing you can say

I was striving to be a great teacher when I wasn’t even a particularly good teacher, yet. I went to professional development after school, on the weekends, over the summer. I read books. I observed other great teachers. I stole moves and tried to do all the little parental (or older brother) gestures of love and firmness I knew to make kids feel seen and respected and challenged. And still, years in, my classroom was not a great place to learn.

One problem I had was a surplus of techniques and a resulting deficit of focus. I was trying to manage too many pedagogical tactics and trying to manage too many kids’ behaviors in too many ways. To make matters worse, I used too many words to say almost everything to kids. 

The wonderful Adam Meinig helped me get through this and helped me to be better and more credible for kids with this bracing question, “What’s the truest thing you can say right now?” He’d lob that Yoda-grenade at me when I was talking in circles about the content of the lesson or the rationale for a new school policy or the requirements of the upcoming state test. 

The answer to “what is the truest thing you can say right now?” was usually simple and blunt. 

And Adam almost every time would say, “Just say that to them.” 

When I am facing a tricky communications puzzle now, Adam’s question helps. Sometimes finding the words for the team or the customers is like my bad teaching - you’re trying to juggle emotional intelligence and politics and resource shortages and and and. You lose credibility and fail to persuade because people can tell you’re striving to manage a bunch of things. You’re not telling them the truest thing you can.

-eric