My Fight With Life:Confessions of a new Teacher

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Being a professional in the field of Education takes a lot of courage, patience, planning and kindness. As for me, I've realized that being a new teacher entrusted with the education of 19 Standard Four students is daunting to say the least. It's like walking around with Category 3 disasters around you permanently. It's like having a persistent surge of adrenaline. You are always in a state of 'fight or flight.' I've been a full-time teacher for almost 5 months and these are a few of the lessons that I have learned.  

1. Teacher Envy

Students have just spent a full year with a teacher. This teacher may have had more experience than you, had more time to get to know them and create good memories with them as well. They may come to you with a great attachment to their last teacher and, being children, can carelessly crush your spirit with a statement like. "I wish we were still in Ms. Smith's class." What can you do to win the battle against their past teacher? You don't. You don't fight it.  Accept what they have with their last teacher as beautiful and encourage that relationship. (For some, that relationship may have been one of the only positive ones that they had). Remember that while teacher Smith was wonderful, you are also wonderful and bring something special to the class. You are unique and if you spend more time creating a relationship with them and exploring each other, you will see that soon they will develop an attachment to you as well. It won't and should not be like Teacher Smith's. You are you. And this is good enough.

As for all the careless comments that students sometimes make. Agree with them. When they see that their statement doesn't hurt or isn't taboo. They say it less and less.

 For E.g.
Careless Child: I really wish that we were still in Miss Smith's class.
Me: Yeah? Why?
Careless Child: Well we always got to go on field trips.
Me: That sounds like fun. Maybe we can explore going on a field trip as well.

2. You are not SuperTeacher
Teaching is great responsibility packed with challenges. Research has shown that teaching is one of the most stressful jobs fraught with on-the-spot decisions, administration discrepancies and impractical expectations. It is quite easy to feel like the worse teacher and that you are not giving enough of yourself to your students. This can also be heightened by comments from your co-workers, students grades and parents complaints.

What has helped me is keeping a simple rubric. For myself. Once I am doing certain things, then I tell myself you are on the right track. You are doing well. These are: preparing for classes, differentiating my approaches to reach different children, being kind to them, being firm when I need to be to keep them in check, diligently working with them towards their goals, being fair and giving necessary and appropriate responses to the office. Once I am doing these things or even attempting them then I remind myself that I am on the right track. I can only do what I can do.



3. You will want to run in the opposite direction- OFTEN


You are the controller of the atmosphere in your class. This means that you have to set the pace for the interactions that occur. This is what we are taught. On the contrary, this is rarely the case. Students all have their own world with their rules, interactions, inside jokes, crisis days and on top of this, the social carnival they have going on. On top of all of this, they also have a biological storm surging within. They are growing. So you can try as hard as you like but on some days, they will try EVERY OUNCE of your patience. They can be inconsiderate, rude, loud, disrespectful and even unkind. They are kids. And you are teaching most of them how to 'human.' So some days you will want to run in the opposite direction! This is okay. This doesn't make you a bad teacher. This makes you human. Keep fighting and reminding yourself of the importance of your role.





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