I was having a conversation with someone who has left teaching for the moment. “I am not ready to do it again,” she tells me, “I am not ready to teach undergraduates again.”

This quote might strike home with many who are preparing to return to the classroom in January. The only good response to my friend’s statement is a very loud, “who is?”

Getting ready to teach undergraduates is exhausting. You cannot make a list of what they do not know. You cannot prepare for their attempts to get out of work, assignments, attendance. You cannot prepare for their questions about things that were listed on the course outline or syllabus. 

But what you can do is get ready by abandoning this task. Simply do not prepare to teach undergraduates. 

Prepare instead to share something you love with young people. Prepare instead to offer writing and thinking that has given you pause, increased your heartbeat, made you smile alone at your library table. Instead, prepare to lead people to have a look at something you have admired and enjoyed. 

Prepare to work together through a text that you assume you know well. Prepare to have that assumption ripped to shreds. Prepare to turn over the speaking and teaching space of the classroom – the position of power – to these new colleagues and prepare to be amazed. 

Prepare to be upset. Prepare to wonder why it is that they are not as excited as you are about this piece, this assignment, this video. Prepare for frustration when they write something you asked them to write and it just isn’t as good as it should be. Then prepare what you will say to them when you see them next in order to help them feel, think, see, and write in a worthy way. A way worthy of other people’s time and attention.

Prepare to lead a group of inexperienced campers into the woods. Prepare to be surprised when their skill-sets and experiences from outside of the woods become apt metaphors and blueprints for what needs to be done when you camp near an interesting tree or find an unexplored cave. Prepare to use some really weird metaphors for your course. Prepare to encounter them with your students. Prepare for them to be surprised, and to surprise you.

Prepare nothing but assignments you would wish to see come into being. Prepare to offer freedom of form in exchange for excellence, as there is no better rubric. Prepare to be amazed what your colleagues in the classroom will create if given space and time to do so. Prepare to work with friends on creating the speech, writing, and presentations you’d like to exist in the world. Prepare to create new thought by transforming your power as teacher into liberation. Prepare to hand it to them. Prepare to share it.

Prepare ways of seeing whether your students have learned. Ask about feelings as well as concepts. Be prepared for conflict. Once you are prepared to be in a room with colleagues, or equals, you must prepare to engage them as such. If they do not accept your reading or view, you must prepare to defend it the way academic work should be defended – carefully, thoughtfully, and with explanations that are meant to help. The best arguments create pathways, bridges, and maps. 

Prepare for a really fun time. Prepare to take it all in, all the thoughts and feelings of these students, of them sharing with you their ideas, because before you know it, it will be time to prepare the final grades. Prepare to leave the class. Prepare to remember this semester, and the faces and minds of these students in a way that you will appreciate as you prepare for the future. In the future, somewhere, the older you will be grateful as they prepare again. 

Our time in the classroom is fleeting; it’s over before it begins. Prepare to capture the snowfall with a pencil and notebook. 

Most importantly, realize that getting ready is there, in front of you now. You are ready. Reach out, and get it. Getting ready isn’t any more than reaching out and taking the experience you wish your course to be. 

Prepare. Get ready. It’s all about the first few moments of encounter. Make them beautiful.