Graham Davis felt ready to become a teacher.
His NIU College of Education curriculum. His clinicals. His student-teaching. He was prepared.
But then came job interviews, followed by an unexpected thought: “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“After that third interview, I really realized my worth as a teacher,” said Davis, who earned his B.S.Ed. in Elementary Education in 2023.
“The first two places I went to, I felt like, ‘You know, this is a great school. This is something that I really, really enjoy, but it’s not something that makes me feel like I’m being seen, and doesn’t make me feel like I’m genuinely a good piece of what this system can do for students,’ ” he added.
“When I walk into a building, and I realize that these kids are loved by every single teacher in that building, I want to be that next person who’s doing that for kids. Realizing your worth is that first thing that you needed to understand.”
Davis, an instructional coach at Martin Elementary School in Huntley Community School District 158, served as the keynote speaker for the Dec. 12 COE New Teacher Send-off in the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center.
Each graduate also received a stress-ball red apple, an NIU lapel pin and a copy of the Teacher’s Creed, which was recited as a group.
Mary Earick, dean of the college, began the event with words of encouragement for the licensure majors.
“You are about to shape lives, inspire curiosity and create spaces where children and young adults feel seen and heard,” Earick said. “As you begin the next chapter, remember that your love for teaching is your greatest strength. You must lean into that, nurture it and let it guide you as you make a huge transformational impact on the futures of your students.”
Confirmed, Davis said.
“I’m not some seasoned veteran. I’m someone who figures it out day by day, just like you will for the first five years,” he told the Huskies. “That being said, I found out the reason I was there really, really fast, and it was the students. It’s the impact that you make on them just as teachers before you have done.”
Positive relationships forged with students are “the most important things about being a teacher,” he said.
“You’re learning not only who they are as students but you’re learning about who they are as people,” Davis said.
“You’re not just a teacher to these kids. You are a babysitter, which is not the best part. You are a parent. You are a friend. You are a social worker. You are a psychologist. You are an everything under the sun,” he added. “They go to these different things in your school – they’re going to watch and see and learn from different people – but I had 24 who sat in front of me every single day, and I did everything for those 24.”
Key to the process is recognizing the personal “baggage” on both sides of the classroom, he said, and finding those moments of familiarity that finally unite students and teachers as partners.
“You will not get a single thing out of that kid if they don’t trust you. If they don’t love you. If they don’t feel that connection with you,” he said. “That opens up this new boundary that wasn’t there before. That wall was up – and now it’s come crashing down because of what you said.”
Teachers must know, however, that they “are the leaders of the classroom in all senses of the word.”
Included in that is education, he said, but also emotion. Students can tell when their teacher’s head and heart are somewhere else, but the responsibility of teaching must take precedence.
“When those eight hours of your day hit, that is everything in the world. You don’t have anything else,” Davis said. “You have your kids. You have what you’re doing for them. You have what they’re doing for you. You make that connection.”
And, he added, “you have this. You’re going to be amazing. But just remember why you’re doing it.”
