I am surrounded by teachers in my life: my sister, my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law, and good friends from college. When you think of all the abuse they must have endured from the limit-pushing students year after year, it makes you wonder how they do it, or why they do it.
The fact that they are still teaching makes them superhuman in my mind. So I called my sister and asked her a few questions about teaching.
She took me back to my own high school days. I remember kids being mean, entitled, disrespectful, and overall completely disinterested in what the teacher was saying. For the life of me I can’t quite remember anything I learned in Universal History, and I was one of the good and quiet ones! In short, kids will probably learn nothing from my subbing session. They may also be tired and drained and checked out for the semester, further feeding the Nothing Learned rule.
My sister told me the story of a military man who came to teach at her school. They all thought he was exactly what the school needed. Well, he didn’t last 2 weeks. He basically left puffing and saying how could anyone stand all that abuse. Expect kids to push your buttons and don’t let them see you lose your cool. Check.
I have to say: I was intimidated before, but now I am even more! What if I can’t cut it? What if I am just too emotional and kids walk all over me? What if they make me cry, like my sister promises they will?
I’m preparing myself mentally for this Friday’s subbing gig. I am expecting kids to be lazy, loud, disrespectful. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to get them to behave, but I don’t know if they will work. I may be being too naive in thinking I could handle a classroom perfectly on my first day.
I do have to say that the one thing that gives me confidence is that I do have experience captivating an audience. I have a strong inclination towards making things entertaining enough and lively enough. I do believe I have the right makings to be a good teacher.
The question is: will it be enough?
ina