The Craft of Teaching Confidence
Editor’s Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The “On Teaching” series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.
Judith Harper always began her “Literature and Performance” class at Westwood High School, in Mesa, Arizona, with a discussion of one of her favorite quotes: “Trust is the result of a risk successfully survived.” These words, from the late psychology professor Jack R. Gibb, capture her teaching philosophy: Harper, who retired this year after 38 years in education, believes that young people will always reach their full potential if they can learn to trust their own voice. In her classes, Harper says, that trust emerged when students took on the small, daily risks she intentionally orchestrated through her lessons—analyzing complex poetry, plays, and novels; writing original scripts based on those texts; and learning how to stage and perform them.
When Lisett Montano, a 2020 graduate, picked Harper’s class as a junior, she secretly chose it as a way to reading and writing in English. A native Spanish speaker, Montano didn’t learn English until she was 13. In
