Love to Teach: Sarah Petters

I don’t love to teach because of the light bulb moments when one kid finally gets it, or to see if a new lesson lands well with third period. Though, I have to admit, those are delicious moments when you see your work paying off.

I love to teach because of what I call marshmallow moments. You’ve probably heard of the famous marshmallow study. Scientists left preschoolers alone in a room with one marshmallow. They told the child that if they didn’t eat this marshmallow, they would get two when the researchers came back. Kids who didn’t eat the marshmallow went on to have better life outcomes – higher emotional intelligence, SAT scores, educational attainment, and even salaries. They’ve since updated the study by exposing half the kids to reliable adults and the other half to unreliable adults. They found that kids who were exposed to unreliable adults, who, for example, had promised to bring them new crayons and hadn’t delivered, were significantly more likely to eat the marshmallow. Exposing kids to reliable adults makes them more likely to delay gratification and not eat the marshmallow, suggesting that they will go on to have significantly better life outcomes.

Of all of the hours that my students are awake on any given day, I am often the adult that occupies most of those ticks on the clock. My job is to be their reliable adult. That’s why I love this job, and what I consider the most important part. Regardless of how well-planned my lesson is, how there was that incident in homeroom I have to deal with, how little coffee I’ve had, how I really need to get around to that dentist appointment, how the average on yesterday’s exit ticket was in the 60s, or that I have a million unanswered emails from last night’s faculty meeting, my job is to be present, to be calm, to be reliable, and to do it all with love.

Selfishly, and I can say this because I’m an adult who didn’t eat the marshmallows as a preschooler, I get the instant gratification of watching my students grow really quickly in this kind of environment. They rise to expectations because they know what to expect. They build the stamina to sit correctly in their desks, learn the self-control to walk down the hallway in a line, and learn the citizenship of reacting positively with their teammates. Before long, those marshmallow moments start happening everywhere: they’re going out of their way to pick up after someone who has dropped something and maybe I’ll notice, they’re working quietly for 7 minutes instead of 5, and are excited to tell me about that time they didn’t get in a fight. I love teaching because there are marshmallow moments, and small victories, like this every single day. There is always something to celebrate.

Author:  Sarah Petters

5th Year Teacher

KIPP Strive Academy

Atlanta, GA

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