Correcting Our Connecting

Before I became a teacher, I worked in food service. I loved it. I was part of a high-functioning team in a dining hall that served three meals a day to thousands of hungry undergraduates. Each summer we transitioned to hosting conferences, during which we served cardiac surgeons, cryptographers, cosmologists, and cheerleaders. We worked long hours, made messes, served healthy and delicious food, and always left the kitchen at night as clean as we found it in the morning.

There are lots of reasons why I loved the work—so much so that I almost chose it as my career rather than education. In particular, one practice I learned in the kitchen taught me a lot about care. The practice is just two words: "Behind you." It's what every person on the noisy kitchen floor is taught to say as they carry scalding water or sharp knives while maneuvering around others. "Behind you," we'd say in that dangerous environment, to alert others that we saw them, that we recognized their vulnerability, and that we would keep them safe by letting them know we were there.