The three little words that changed how I teach Jill Vinson
Early in my teaching career
and much to my mom’s dismay
I took a huge risk, packed up,
and moved across the country.
I was a bilingual teacher from California,
whose only experience
was teaching disadvantaged
Spanish-speaking third and fourth graders
in high needs schools.
Suddenly, I was a first grade teacher in
a fluent, Midwestern suburbia.
I was responsible for
twenty-two 6 year-olds,
who came loaded down
with new school supplies,
to a school that had almost as many parent
volunteers and students.
The interview process had
been super rigorous,
and I was thrilled to be
teaching at a school
that was so beautiful and had so much.
The district had a culture
of high performance,
and everybody was expected to excel.
School hadn’t even started yet, and I was
already feeling the pressure,
and that was before I got my class list,
and I was told that our school board
president’s daughter
had been placed in my class.
It was like that.
Another one of my students that year was
a sweet boy named Allen.
Most of the kids started the year as
emerging readers and writers,
but Allen struggled.
Learning was hard for him, and he came in
with very few readiness skills.
He hid his struggles by writing strings of
the same three letters over and over
during all subjects, and covering his work
with his arms so no one could see.
I gave him a lot of individualized support
and tried tons of strategies
that I brainstormed
with my teaching partner,
who like me, had some experience,
but was also new to the district.
I panicked as the first trimester
came to an end,
and I realized that despite
all of our efforts,
Allen had not retained one new letter
or letter sound.
He was clearly in need of a professional
and I was in way over my head.
I felt sick as I knocked on the door to
Mrs. Carter’s office,
my assistant principal.
How was I going to explain to her that
they had hired the wrong person?
I had no idea how to actually
teach early literacy,
and the students in my class were probably
learning to read and write in spite of me,
not because of me.
I asked her if she had
a few minutes to talk.
Part of me hoped she’d
ask me to come back later,
but instead, she invited me in.
I sat down, took a deep breath, and told
Allen’s story.
I avoided eye contact,
as I reluctantly admitted that
I was failing as Allen’s teacher.
And I asked her what she
thought I should do.
I felt mortified but oddly relieved that I
was about to get some expert guidance.
What happened next, shocked me.
She looked me in the eye and said,
“Hm. I don’t know.”
At that moment my first thought was,
“What?! You’re in charge here.
How can you not know?!”
I looked down and I could actually feel
my heart pounding, as we sat there,
in this painfully long silence.
It was really awkward.
I thought about saying I’d keep working
on it, thanking her for her time,
and getting out of there
as fast as I could.
But when I forced myself to look up,
there was kindness in her eyes,
and a genuine look of concern
on her face, and she said,
“Tell me more.”
Mrs. Carter asked me about Allen’s
history,
what I noticed when I work with him one
on one, and what I already tried.
As I talked, I realized that I actually
knew more than I gave myself credit for,
and as hard as it was,
I had done the right thing in coming
to Mrs. Carter for help.
Her disarming approach of leading with,
“I don’t know,”
opened up space for honest dialogue,
that helped identify some new ideas, and
concrete next steps.
By making herself vulnerable, something
changed in the dynamic between us.
Mrs. Carter began to feel less like an
authority figure,
and more like a teammate.
She made it feel okay not to know.
By not providing me with answers, she
helped me gain confidence,
and feel like a valued colleague.
A veteran school leader didn’t know, and
I didn’t know,
but we were going to work
together to figure it out,
and it felt great.
We didn’t resolve Allen’s needs that day,
but we did start the process
of getting him the right help.
And I learned a lot about myself
and the power of being
comfortable not having the answers.
I was a product of the
factory model of education,
where teachers held the knowledge,
and information was disseminated
out to students.
Adults in general, and
especially educators,
were supposed to have the answers, and
they were always right.
I have learned early on to operate within
this hierarchy as a student,
and later as a beginning teacher.
The concept of not knowing something and
embracing that uncertainty as a posititive
definitely wasn’t something
I would seek out.
It was a total cognititive dissonance.
Not knowing was concsidered a deficiency,
synonymous with beng uneducated.
Why would anybody willingly embrace that?
As I reflected on that experience
with Mrs. Carter,
I realized that my students could benefit
from me modeling that same vulnerability
of not having the answers.
Because this was uncharted
territory for me,
I worried that it would backfire, and I’d
lose control of the class,
or worse, the respect of my students.
So I started off small, and I got the most
amazing results.
It didn’t come naturally to me at first.
I was super uncomfortable, because the
classroom was noisier and messier
during these less structured times.
But I saw how engaged the kids were,
how much they were learning, and how
much fun they were having,
and I gradually created more opportunities
for embracing the unknown,
by posing open-ended problems, challenges,
and projects.
I learned to be okay not knowing what the
students' final product would be,
or what steps they would
take to get there.
And I actually found that we were all
having a lot more fun.
I’ve taken that powerful experience to
heart,
and it has become one of my
core values over the years.
As I moved out of the classroom
and into various leadership roles,
I’ve continued to remind myself
what Mrs. Carter taught me
about the power of not knowing.
Being vulnerable, especially when you
don’t know or aren’t sure,
has the wonderful ability
to cultivate trust.
It creates a low-risk environment that
invites collaboration
and the sharing of ideas,
these shared experiences
promote friendship, laughter,
and mutual respect for
individual strengths.
Acknowledging what we don’t know
promotes a culture that values
authenticity and engagement,
where fulfillment comes naturally
as everybody works together
for the collective good.
Being vulnerable as an educator means
engaging in opportunities
to experiment, fail, and learn, alongside
the team for self-improvement,
and to help our learning community evolve.
To do this, we have to set aside our fear
of being judged,
view ourselves as learners
and not experts,
and embrace the vulnerability
of not knowing.
That’s easy to say, and hard to do.
We have to learn to be comfortable,
putting ourselves out there,
and having our ideas pushed back on,
or tabled all together.
It means learning to be okay with the fact
that we don’t know what we don’t know.
And that the best ideas often evolve
through iteration and collaboration.
It involves authentically engaging
in and modeling
the same skills that our students
will need to hone,
as they prepare for a rapidly
changing future.
I often feel the urgency of time, and how
short the window actually is to be a kid.
We have a responsibility to
maximize that precious time,
so our students leave wtih
a strong foundation,
and a solid set of tools to conquer
whatever their future holds.
As we reshape education by
embracing 21st century learning practices,
it’s humbling and sometimes
frustrating to be reminded
that systemic change takes time.
As long as we have a shared vision,
and work together along a continuum,
it’s okay not to know everything, or have
it all figured out.
The important thing is that we’re not
sitting still or sitting in a silo.
In today’s modern learning environment,
where everyone, big and small,
should view themselves as a learner,
and learning as interconnected,
our role isn’t to have all the answers,
but rather, to ask good questions.
leave room for wondering and thinking,
and embrace the journey that unfolds.
Learning how to admit that we don’t know,
is more than just embracing vulnerability.
Tone matters a lot.
“I dunno” means “I dont care.”
“I dont know” means
“Go ask someone who does.”
The inviting “I don’t know…”
is more of a wondering,
and what we say next matters, too.
“What do you think?” “What if you
tried…?” “Tell me more about that.”
These comments create space
for conversation,
invite reflection, and promote the
exchange of ideas.
Mrs. Carter disarmed me by saying
“I don’t know,”
but instantly made herself approachable by
wanting to know more.
Sometimes not saying anything afterward
can be helpful too.
Improvisation coaches advise that learning
to be comfortable with silence
when you don’t know what to say
is far more powerful
than filling the void.
“Um” is what we say when we don’t know
exactly what we’re going to say.
It’s considered a defensive way of keeping
the conversation in our own hands.
If we learn to pause silently instead,
the quiet space gives
others time to think,
and gives us time to better
articulate our own ideas.
In the classroom we call this “wait time.”
Sometimes the best thoughts from our
students
come when we give them
ample time to formulate their ideas,
instead of jumping to the first
person with the raised hand.
Honoring silent thinking time
reinforces the idea
that it’s okay not to know right away,
and that sometimes
good ideas take time.
The future demands that we develop
the ability to embrace not knowing
as an entry point to “What if?”
In the workforce, design thinking embraces
the idea of not knowing by prototyping:
identifying a problem, conducting empathy
interviews, developing a prototype,
trying it out, iterating.
Our students, as the future global
workforce,
will need to be comfortable not knowing,
and be confident in their ability to
imagine, experiment, fail, and grow,
both independently and in teams.
After all, the smartest person in the room
is the whole room.
I challenge all of us to harness the power
of not knowing,
and make it something to embrace and
celebrate.
Let’s make not knowing be an invitation
to curiosity, collaboration,
reflection, growth, and not knowing yet.