NIKKI MILNER

I have done a strange thing lately. I stepped out on faith and applied to my kids’ school to become a teacher.

Now, I do not have a traditional teaching degree. I do, however, have a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. My children attend a smaller Christian school, one where many teachers have come into education through unconventional paths. Still, applying felt vulnerable.

I am writing this mostly to get my emotions out of my head. My mind can be a noisy place sometimes. Not necessarily a bad thing, but distracting nevertheless. Writing has always helped me slow everything down enough to actually hear my own thoughts clearly.

If I am being honest with myself, this is probably the first time in nearly a decade that I have truly put myself “out there.”

When I graduated from college, I wanted nothing more than to become a career woman. I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. Looking back now, I can see that I tied much of my identity to achievement. I believed that if I accomplished enough externally, somehow it would prove my worth internally.

Another truth is that I was not great at school growing up. Some of that came from life circumstances, like my parents’ divorce, but some of it was simply that my brain did not fit neatly inside a traditional classroom setting. The older I get, especially now raising my own children, the more I question why we expect every child, from every background and personality type, to thrive in the exact same environment.

“The public school system is broken” has become cliché, but I believe there is truth in that statement. Education has become about checking boxes. Teach the standard. Pass the test. Move to the next benchmark. Learning cannot become more about measurable performance than understanding the actual child sitting in front of us. Or that is my hope.

My husband and I use a phrase often in life and business:

There is a massive difference between those two mindsets. Playing to win comes from confidence, curiosity, and trust. Playing not to lose comes from fear. It feels heavy. It feels like constantly trying to catch up. It creates survival mode thinking.

I think many students live in that survival mode every single day.

Children who are naturally gifted academically and thrive on structure, often do very well in school. I have one child like that. But what about the child who cannot sit still? The child who does not understand it the first time? The child who feels behind before they even begin?

What happens to them?

The funny thing about becoming a parent is that your children often reflect pieces of yourself back to you.

I see myself deeply in both of my boys.

Hutch, my oldest, reminds me of my younger self. School does not come naturally to him. He can struggle with focus and motivation. He is mild mannered and easygoing. But for every weakness people may notice first, there are extraordinary strengths underneath them. Hutch is one of the kindest people I know. If you know Hutch, you love Hutch. He is deeply passionate about the things he cares about, and the moment he decides he wants to pursue something, he commits fully.

Then there is Granger, my youngest. Granger reminds me of who I am now. His mind moves fast. He is endlessly curious. He is naturally gifted in school and sports. He loves challenges and constantly seeks the next thing to learn or conquer. But with all of those strengths also comes anxiety, intensity, and frustration when others do not operate at the same speed he does.

Both boys are incredibly intelligent. Both boys are incredibly valuable. Both boys struggle in completely different ways.

That is exactly my point.

If we judge children primarily by how they perform academically, then some children start life already believing they are losing. But people are far more complex than test scores. We are messy.

That is where my philosophy of education begins.

I believe in teaching the whole child.

To me, the “whole child” is not just an educational buzzword. I picture every child as a pie chart made up of different slices. Their personality, fears, interests, gifts, home life, struggles, passions, insecurities, and experiences all make up who they are. A teacher’s job is not simply to transfer information. It is to understand what each child is made of.

Sometimes, all it takes is one point of connection for a child to begin seeing themselves differently.

I think many students spend years believing certain parts of themselves are “bad.” I disagree with that entirely. There may be parts that need growth or guidance, but I do not believe children are made up of good parts and bad parts.

One of my favorite quotes is:

To me, it is all about perspective.

Education should not simply reward children who perform well and quietly dismiss the ones who struggle. Failure is information. Failure reveals thought processes, emotional barriers, confidence issues, learning differences, fear, creativity, and problem-solving approaches. It tells a story.

Your test scores are not your identity.

Ironically, I think every student needs to hear that, not just the struggling ones.

We live in a society that rewards accumulated advantage, or the Matthew Effect. Children who begin ahead often continue to gain confidence and opportunities, while children who struggle early can slowly begin to believe they are incapable. We see this especially in literacy development, where students who succeed early tend to keep succeeding, while those who struggle early often fall further behind.

At some point, society accepted this pattern as normal.

I do not.

I am fascinated by people who challenge limitations, systems, and assumptions. I love psychology, writing, reading, science, and math. I especially love the intersection between creativity and structure.

Math feels absolute. Science feels infinite.

Lately I have become deeply interested in quantum physics and scientific thinking, not because I want to become a physicist, but because it has changed the way I think about learning itself.

So much of life is viewed through a large-scale lens. Standardized testing is a perfect example. Decisions are made at high levels, then pushed downward until they eventually land in a classroom full of completely different human beings with completely different needs.

But what happens when we bring learning down to a more individual level?

What happens when a teacher notices connections nobody else sees?

I recently read Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol, and one of the ideas that stayed with me most was the importance of exposing yourself to subjects outside your comfort zone. I have always loved psychology and literature, but recently I started reading Scientific American every morning. It challenged my brain in completely different ways and expanded my thinking far beyond what I expected.

That same principle applies to students.

Maybe a child who “hates reading” simply has not found the right type of reading yet. Maybe the student obsessed with sports would connect deeply with a sports magazine. Maybe the child who excels in math but struggles with writing could learn to explain mathematical thinking through storytelling.

Children are not one-dimensional learners. They are also messy learners.

One psychological concept I deeply believe in is metacognition, which is essentially “thinking about your thinking.” I have unknowingly practiced this throughout my life, long before I knew there was a formal term for it.

One of the people I most admire studying is Albert Einstein. He heavily utilized metacognition. I am fascinated by how certain minds think differently. Einstein famously used visualization experiments constantly. He imagined himself riding on beams of light in order to mentally test scientific theories.

Imagine teaching students to mentally place themselves inside a poem, a historical moment, or a story before writing about it. Imagine helping students understand not just what they think, but how they think.

What if each school year were viewed as an experiment in growth instead of simply a race toward benchmarks?

Experiments involve variables, adjustments, learning, and refinement. Every year brings new students, new personalities, new struggles, and new opportunities to become a better teacher than the year before.

As for me personally, I love learning. I genre jump constantly when I read. I love fantasy, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, psychology, philosophy, and science.

I recently purchased The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and The Teenage Brain by Frances E. Jensen because I genuinely want to understand children better.

I want to know how they think. How they grow. How they become who they are.

I still have a lot to learn. That is the part that excites me most. Trusting the Lord to guide the rest.