Be Like Charlotte

"Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?"

"Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle."

—Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

When I read Charlotte's Web as a second grader, I immediately grasped the incredible heroism of Charlotte's work. The spider's brilliant idea to weave words of praise for Wilbur earned them fame and thus saved the pig's life. I respect and celebrate such acts of creativity and heroism when I see them (especially when they make for good reading), but recently I've thought more about Dr. Dorian's musing that "nobody point[s] out that the web itself is a miracle." As a student teacher observing and learning in fourth-grade classrooms, I'm slowly coming to understand the miracle of the everyday craft of teaching.

I see it in the dedication and time put into planning the day's, the week's and the year's lessons—foreseeing how each hour of instruction fits into student understandings, themes and units for the year, school goals and state standards, much like the precise concentric circles of a spider's web. Every day, the spider rebuilds its web to keep it sticky and strong, and, similarly, a teacher takes in his or her experience and refines it. Not only must teachers evaluate their performance in terms of personal philosophy, recent research on best practices and the vagaries of education politics, they also must be ready to change their plans, even on a moment's notice, to adjust to what their students know and need. Like spiders, teachers keep one foot on their web, ready to sense the tiniest tremors—staying aware to the details that mean one student is having a bad day that could be improved with a bit of extra attention, or that another could work better if seated apart from a current neighbor, or that another shows signs of needing specialized instruction.

Creating a web costs the spider a great deal of energy—the silk, famously strong, is made almost entirely of protein. Sometimes spiders consume part of their webs at the end of the day to recoup some of their energy loss so they can rebuild the web tomorrow. Teachers might wish their self-renewal were as close at hand.

An intense focus on teaching practice doesn't preclude singular moments of inspiration. One day last fall my roommates and I saw an enormous spider perched outside my window. Its swollen, inch-long body and hairy, segmented legs made us recoil in horror. To my roommates' chagrin, I was seized with the idea of bringing it inside and then taking it to the school where I student-teach. A boy in my classroom who had trouble reading had just begun a book on spiders, I explained; he'd be so excited by this giant specimen.

The next day, I told Anthony that I'd found a giant spider—and asked if he could write down a few facts and be our spider expert when I brought the critter in. Excitedly, Anthony bent over his book and began writing in painstakingly careful letters that scattered across his paper like an ant colony on spilled ice cream. The next day, he proudly read from his notes as we passed the spider jar around. Seeing him take pride in his writing was T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C. I felt as if I'd spun a miracle.

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."