If you were to ask me what my favorite type of bread is, I would say banana bread. Not just any type of banana bread, but the one my mom would always make. The crisp brown top and the savory aroma was all it took to turn our little home in Bakersfield into Heaven. However, when I finally learned how it was made, my entire world turned on its head.

The reason was not because of the flour, eggs, butter or brown sugar. It was the bananas. My mom knew banana bread was my favorite, so her insistence on waiting for the fruit to fully ripen always frustrated me. I hated waiting so long before finally baking together. 

“Let them be,” she would say. “They are not ready yet,” she would remind me. 

But how could I possibly do nothing when all that potential was rotting right in front of me? If they were not ready, there must have been something I could do to make them ready! In all my angst, my mom just stared at me like I was going… bananas. To be fair, I kind of was (after all, they were just bananas). But part of me refused to listen to what she was saying.

The bananas she bought always had a golden color that placed them above all the other fruit in our kitchen. Placing these bananas in such high regard, I was certain that using them right then and there was best. Surely the better they looked, the better they would be for banana bread! 

However, looks can be deceiving. And, if you want to really get into it, looks are scientifically so. Bananas release a substance known as ethylene gas, which is responsible for helping them ripen. As more gas is released, the banana becomes riper, sweeter and blacker. In simpler terms, ripening makes them all the more prime for banana bread. So, I guess my mom was right. I had to let them be. They were just not ready yet.

I considered this lesson relatively unimportant until recently, when I had some similar conversations as a new teacher.

“Why should I leave them alone when we have an exam right around the corner?” Without my guidance, how will I know they will be on track to succeeding?

“We already went over this in class and they are still not ready.” So what could I do to make them ready?

Well, frankly, teaching is complicated. As a teacher candidate in the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP), I thought I was just learning how to teach chemistry. However, my professors guided me to an eye-opening realization: I was not teaching chemistry, I was teaching students. 

That subtle distinction over what I was teaching will change how I see teaching forever. Sure, I am teaching how to balance chemical equations and represent the world around us with particle models. However, I am also teaching students empathy, community, determination and how to navigate an education system which may be intimidating. Indeed, no student walks into a school with the assets necessary to navigate everything, whether it be the superfluous jargon of financial aid or those unspoken expectations from peers and teachers (a hidden curriculum, so to speak).

So, yes, I am teaching chemistry, but I am mainly teaching students. And, like the bananas before banana bread, I need to let them be and support them until they are ready. Now, this is not just limited to high school students. As a teacher candidate, I can tell you what’s applicable to high schoolers definitely has its utility for college students. But you do not have to be a professor, a teaching assistant, or even a mentor to let someone be or support someone until they are ready. Being patient, knowing that it takes time to make progress and that you should not push someone until they are ready (thanks mom for the advice), is a practice that can be learned and does not take an advanced degree in chemistry to do so.