Shoutout to the Superfriends

11.23.09 By Neema Avashia

I grew up in a house with two doctors—my dad, and my sister. Dinner table conversation frequently, if not always, revolved around healthcare. Social gatherings were much the same. And I was often annoyed about the fact that no one talked about anything other than medicine in my house. “Please,” I would beg. “Can we please not talk about the latest JAMA article tonight?”

Fast forward 15-odd years, and I find myself in a profession that is equally intense, equally complex, and equally in need of dinner-table processing time. The work of teaching—GOOD teaching—is something that I don’t think a lot of people really get. And if you’re going to do it well, you need a community of peers who are going to support you in your work, and who you are going to support in theirs. I look back on those dinner table conversations of my childhood, and realize that I, in truth, need them in the same way that my father and sister did.

Enter BTR.

Enter the Superfriends. (Note—this name was invented by another former BTR resident, and I am shamelessly stealing it.)

My first, and ultimate, Superfriend was Bob Ettinger, a middle school science teacher who was in Cohort 1 of BTR (before the term ‘cohort’ was even used) with me. We did our residency years at the McCormack, and were both hired to teach in the same cluster after graduation. We did not share content, but we shared pretty much every other aspect of our teaching lives. We shared students, shared pedagogy, shared recipes, shared our commute, shared our heartache and struggles, shared the ideas that helped us both to be successful, and in many ways, shared a teaching-brain. We were better teachers together than I think either of us are alone, and I miss him terribly now that he’s left me, his work-wife, for rainy Seattle and a life with his REAL wife.

After Bob moved to Seattle, I really struggled in my teaching. I felt like I’d plateaued, and I didn’t know how to push myself alone. I needed external push to get better, a different set of eyes, and another brain to think with, and I didn’t have those things. And while I looked for friends in my school community who could serve the functions that Bob did, no one even came close. For a year, I was really lonely in my teaching. I felt isolated and stifled. I contemplated leaving my school. Contemplated leaving the profession. I knew something had to change, and decided that I wasn’t ready to leave kids, or my work with them, yet, and so changed gears by moving to 8th grade. I hoped the change would shock my system enough to propel me into a growth phase once again, whether I had colleagues to process with or not.

At the same time that I was making this move, BTR was introducing a new series of professional development opportunities known as teacher-to-teacher seminars. These meetings were designed for teachers to share best practices, engage in action research, build curriculum, etc. I opted to join a group called “Collaborating With Communities for Justice”, and found a whole new crew of Superfriends therein. Our conversations in the beginning were wholly big picture—looking at our school system, asking questions about what wasn’t working for kids, and trying to design interventions that would better support kids in navigating the system. But the passion and emotion and excitement that we brought to these conversations also pulled us closer together, and led to other conversations that more specifically dealt with the teaching and learning we were doing in our schools.

Some of these Superfriends were actually former students from the History Methods course that I teach. Others were friends of theirs. Still others were ones I was meeting for the first time. But regardless of our prior relationships, I think we would all say that our work together over the past 12 months has energized and inspired us, and pushed us to new levels of excellence in our teaching. I am grateful for my Superfriends. 

This weekend, I met with another former student from my History Methods class who has been feeling somewhat stifled and isolated in her teaching. My advice? Reach out past your school community to find teachers who share your way of thinking about the work. Start with monthly big-picture planning sessions. Have people come watch you teach, and go watch them teach. Find a big-picture issue that you’re passionate about in BPS, and find a community of folks to work on that issue with you. Whatever you do, don’t stay isolated, and don’t feel like you’re alone in this work.

Because if I had to identify the single most amazing thing about BTR, it is this—a whole cadre of Superfriends awaits; all you need to do is reach out and you’ll find them.