For years I've been scribbling notes about what teaching is, along with other things my students say or thoughts I've had. They've built up in my desk caddy, so here they are. Enjoy!
Being a teacher means training yourself to have no idea who to believe.
Being a teacher means you – the lifeguard – must convince someone that he is drowning. He refuses to believe you, and you can't save him until he does.
Student: "Mr. P. speaks like a chainsaw."
I've taken my undying love for literature, my unquenchable thirst for ideas, my relentless passion for imagination, my intense yen for the life of the mind – and gambled it all, handed it over, slowly through the years, until nothing was left – on the off chance that these seeds will someday blossom into a change of heart for people who appear to hate everything I love.
Being a teacher means resetting your expectations every twelve months.
Being a teacher in the US in 2006 means starting in the same place each year, but being forced to aim higher and higher with each iteration.
Being a teacher means you never have the pleasure of ignoring someone – even (especially) if that person is annoying you.
Being a teacher means you are host to people forced to be guests in your home.
Me: "What happened?" Student: "I had surgery." Me: "Why?" Student: shrugs
Being a teacher means doing variations of the same homework assignment 50 times in one day. (We call it grading papers.)
Being a teacher means blanking your emotional state once an hour every hour. If your second class was frustrating and annoying, you can't carry that feeling into your third class.
Being a teacher means you risk caring too much – to the detriment of your sanity. You must decide at times whether to turn off your heart or disbelieve what students say.
Being a teacher means you must always fight against personified, abstract enemies.
Being a teacher means your short-term desire to care for others must be painfully balanced by your long-term interest in adolescent mental development.
Being a teacher means you torture yourself over decisions no one else will remember in a week.
One of the things I have the most trouble with as a teacher is The Crustening. It goes like this: My general approach (in the classroom and the world) is cheerful and calm. When dealing with students, I always start out using logic and humor and patience. Most of the time, this works.
But a certain percentage of the studentry – repressed by over a decade of authoritarian environs and distracted by the carnivals of consumption – take this patient approach for granted and "act a fool", as the kids say. (Talking when they need to listen or write; cursing after being asked to adjust their language for the institution their ancestors worked to give them access to, etc.)
So what will work? Repressive, authoritarian tactics: yelling, threatening to send them to in-school suspension, calling parents. To get results, I have to be a cop sometimes – and I hate being a cop. Over time I feel myself slouching more and more toward using authoritarianism earlier and earlier in the year. I can tell – never with 100% certainty of course, but often with 80%, and apparently growing – when logic isn't going to work.
So why bother?
No, those are not my students. I Google Imaged "sleeping students" to find some who look like mine sometimes do. I should also mention that the above mostly refers to that 10% of kids that I just can't seem to reach. Mad respect to the other 90%, and feedback is of course welcome from all.
For years I've been scribbling notes about what teaching is, along with other things my students say or thoughts I've had. They've built up in my desk caddy, so here they are. Enjoy!
