The Upside to Naivety

Sometimes, the best thing for your career…is to begin without a clue!
In the Spring of 2012, only two days after my college graduation, I embarked on the enigmatic profession of teaching. I walked blindly into a Pre-k classroom without a speck of knowledge about my school’s curriculum, my student’s names, or even how to unlock the staff bathroom! To my shame, I quickly discovered how visible my ignorance was when a small girl, with a squeaky voice, raised her hand, during circle time, and asked “Do you even know the rules?”
Busted.
I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know the tricks. I didn’t know anything about teaching this skeptical looking jury of four year olds. How could I possibly mold minds when mine felt molded into mush?
But in all my clueless questioning, I couldn’t have sensed the one and only advantage of my inexperience: I didn’t know the traditions. I didn’t know how things had always been done. I didn’t have the directions to the beaten path, so I was forced to take the road less traveled.
In the years that followed, I would, accidentally, think far enough outside of the box to form a different shape altogether. It took doing things the wrong way to teach my kids to write, and this skill would transform every subject they encountered.