Mentor Educators

Bobby Belair:
One of the things that I actually really enjoy about Aaron is that from the beginning, he had me in front of the class within the first full week that I was there.

The first like three days, he said, Hey, I want you to look at what we're doing this week and I want you to find something like a do now or something to do yourself in front of everybody, and I want you to lead it and I want you to be in front of the classroom.

Aaron Taylor:
That was my first real challenge to, to Bobby was, get up there and let's see what you can do.

And what impressed me the most is right away his comfort.

He's ready to work with students from day one, almost before I even asked.

He was wandering around talking with students, checking in on their work.

So his willingness to be a part of the classroom, his excitement for it, that's what first impressed me

BB:
Being able to be in front of the classroom so early.

I mean, I was there leading a lesson in September. Come January, I'm in front of everybody every day.

He says, you are in charge of contemporary lit in its entirety.

Then we talked about, you know, classroom management.

What are you saying? How are you wording things, right?

How was how was your day to day lesson actually being planned?

How quickly does it transition?

All of those lovely little nitty gritty things that you don't think of until you're in front of everybody.

And I got a wonderful crash course into how to do all those things.

And every single day we debrief after every single class and I'd get feedback.

And that feedback was wonderful.

AT:
If you can take my little bits and pieces of advice just to make the next class period better, that's, that's a real plus.

That's a real skill. And he had that, we could have a conversation after second period and he would change it for fourth period based on our conversation.

So that willingness, that flexibility, was a real strength of his.

BB:
This is not just like a mentorship, but some level of a friendship and bringing me into things for Rosh Hashanah.

We did apples and honey.

And so I showed up happily and excited like 30, 40 minutes early to get that all set up.

And so we were cutting apples and putting honey on him and passing 'em out to all the kids.

AT:
I wanted to give him the wiggle room to be creative or bring his own interest to the class.

So any small way we could, whether it was he brought a favorite poem in or he brought a short story in that matched, he could share music with a class.

I wanted to encourage him to show a little bit of himself beyond the lesson planning.

I think that's one of the things that I take a lot of pride in is showing students that I'm actually a human.

And I wanted to show Bobby that it's okay to do that as well.

It allows students to trust you. It builds rapport.

And he took that and ran with it, did a great job showing that he cares about them, and he is, you know, willing to let them in on a little bit of his life, in such a way that it helps build that comfort in the classroom.

BB:
Comfortability in front of a class and being able to manage their behavior as well.

As, you know, actually teaching the thing that you want to teach is definitely a learned thing.

And from the onset, Aaron has been nothing but supportive through that.

There's nothing that has put me more at ease than the knowledge that I have somebody who is just unquestionably in my corner.

AT:
I think it's part of the duty of a teacher to be able to give back to the profession.

I wanna make sure I can help the young teachers who like me so many years ago, needed that extra guidance.

What I would say to Bobby is always think back on what draws you to the classroom every single day and bring that fun and bring that excitement.

Your students are going to love you for that.

And if you ever feel like you're losing it, think back on it. Bring it back to the class.