We often ask what makes a good teacher. We study those who are deemed effective, and do our best to replicate what we see and memorialize it so we can do it again on Day 3 Lesson 5 Syllabus X.

Most educators explain a defining moment in their careers that helped them crossover the imaginary but perfunctory line of “I don't know what the heck I'm doing/The kids are eating me alive” to … “I got this.” It can be sudden, powerful, decisive.

I argue that a teacher's defining moment is the one where they not only find themselves in their classrooms, see themselves in their classrooms—but they are in their classrooms. The entirety of the imperfect, bodacious, let‐me‐learn‐it‐and‐I‐will‐teach‐it whole self finally, finally is present, and it works. Your kids are finally listening and learning from you, and you can feel it.

Because you're not hiding those bits of your authentic self that are stolen away from the regime of Extreme Standardized Testing, the paper version of American Ninja Warrior. Your whole self has surfaced, it has reemerged, and it's here to stay. It happened because maybe you're older, maybe you've fallen more in love with your students, maybe you've just said “F%*$ it!” to yourself, or even out loud, and you just want your students to learn and walk away from school equipped with a moral complexity that will allow them to deal with the world.

There is no metric for this feeling, and once you feel the ferocity of I got this you're no longer waiting for anyone's permission on how to be or what to teach in your classroom.

To teach fiercely is to be in community with your students and yourself; it's stepping outside yourself and looking into your soul. And not just your teaching soul, but your soul soul, because those two things aren't separate.