“Describing I pause, and pausing, attend. Describing requires that I stand back and consider. Describing requires that I not rush to judgment or conclude before I have looked. …I have to set aside familiar categories for classing and generalizing. I have to stay with the subject of my attention.I have to give it time to speak, to show itself.To describe teaches me that the subject of my attention always exceeds what I can see…I learn that when I see a lot, I am still seeing only a little and partially. I learn that when others join in, the description is always fuller that what I saw along.” (Carini 2001, 163)

As an educator of adolescents, this passage made me see something I was not fully aware of, which is the importance and multiple benefits of presenting a full description of a student, a student’s work, or a classroom setup to colleagues in order to receive suggestions and use them. While reading this quote, I remembered the many times I have thought about how to change certain not so positive situations in my previous classes or schools without making much progress, and now I realize that this was because even though teachers would like to be as objective as possible, our own backgrounds and lives influence what we want or can see. Description, on the other hand gives us time to critically reflect on our students’ complexity and not rush into conclusions based solely on our own perspectives. The fact that this process not only gives us the opportunity to really know about our student through description but also allows us to receive recommendations and questions for thought from our colleagues enriches the experience even more because it becomes collaborative work, and this dynamic allows all the participants to learn from each other in the process.