When people whom I haven’t seen for a long time say to me, “You haven’t changed a bit!” I do not take that as a compliment. If I am not better today than I was ten or twenty years ago, then I have definitely missed many opportunities. That is true both in my personal life and in my professional life. I certainly hope that I am a better person, a better parent, a better child, a better spouse, a better student of Torah, and a better teacher than I was a decade ago. 

One sure way I have found to make this growth an integral part of myself is to be open to – even invite – feedback. When my students tell me that they liked or disliked something I did, I need to pay close attention. What was it that they did not like and how can I avoid it in the future? How do I do more of what they did like? What can I learn from their comments? The same is true in parenting. I recall when, a while back, my young son told me that when I raise my voice it impels him to completely tune me out. I could have been offended, I could have asserted my responsibility as a parent to admonish, but I took him and his word seriously, and that has transformed me, my responses to him, and my entire relationship with him. 

As teachers, we sometimes experience those moments during which we hear ourselves talking but we can tell that the students are not there with us. We can take offense at or be frustrated by the student’s disinterest, or we can take a step and recalibrate. Are we approaching this topic the wrong way, are the students being distracted by something which has nothing to do with the class, or is something else going on? Only then can we figure out what we need to shift, and how to shift what we are doing. 

And I would go even further. Many teachers deeply dislike being observed by their supervisors. I don’t think that I need to elaborate on that. But what if we transformed those moments into moments of opportunity, a chance to get real feedback from a professional, feedback which can help us tweak what we do and make it just a tiny bit better? What if we spoke to our supervisor in advance and said, “Could you please look at me when I am doing x or y? I could use some feedback on how to do that better.” Now imagine that we receive the feedback and the advice and thank our supervisor for it. It can shift the nature of our relationship and transform it into a genuine growth opportunity. We can do the same with colleagues. Yes. Invite them in, not to show off what we can do but to invite them to help us figure out how to deal with something we want to improve. Aside from helping to build deep and enriching collegial relationships, it can put every one of us on a path toward incremental but continual growth.

That would be the kind of growth that would inspire a greeting of, “I remember when you were a good teacher, and now I see you, and you are so much better!”