They Didn’t Teach me This!
This happened back in my first year of teaching. First year, first semester, so you already know I had NO IDEA what I was doing. It was the 10 AM class, last class before lunch. The kids were extra rowdy because they just came back from PE, they’re hungry and sweaty, and it’s the goddamn History class. A student of mine asks for the bathroom, and I let her. Twenty minutes later she still hadn’t returned, so I did the only thing I could do: call her parents.
Turns out she was in line at the snack truck getting an I-Cee and a bag of Doritos. I knew it was bull that she was there the whole time; it was class time, not snack time. I told her “I gave you permission to go to the bathroom, not the snack truck!” So then came in her dad and grandma, and of course they’re mad at her. But her grandma turns to me and says “Teacher, you need to control this classroom better!”
And it was true! This class was wild, rambunctious, disobedient, and all around terrible. They were the stuff of nightmares for every teacher, particularly rookies. How bad were they? The polite ones asked to go to the bathroom; the rest just got up and left. A good day with them was a day you could get to actually GIVE the class!
So why couldn’t I control that classroom? Because nobody ever taught me. College is great and all for learning theory, but there’s a difference between theory and actually doing something. You can read up all you want on how to deal with autistic children, but you will STILL make mistakes when actually dealing with one. Why? Because the books can only teach you so much, but experience is what gets you ready.
Not to rag on theory, of course. You actually need theory to guide you through many major hurdles, such as how to plan classes or how to deal with children with extraordinary needs. But what I’m saying is that just having theory on your side won’t prepare you for the realities of being a teacher. Plus, some things you just don’t learn from theory alone.
Truth is that some things you just can’t learn in a classroom; you gotta go out there and experience them first hand. Nobody’s going to teach you how to control a classroom because that’s something you learn by yourself. You can be taught to keep your cool, you can be taught to be patient, but nobody’s going to teach you what to do when the class all starts throwing paper balls at you and refuses to listen to the class. Nobody’s going to prepare you for the kid who refuses to stop talking in class and won’t care about being sent to detention or whatever.
Maybe in a classroom you can learn what NOT to do, but in my case, we didn’t. So to spare any future teachers the pain I had to go through, here is my list of Do Not’s: do not yell, do not humiliate, do not cry, do not ignore, do not lose your cool. Notice, though, that as good as this list could be, it doesn’t tell you what you should do. There’s a good reason for that.
Simply put, there’s nothing I can tell you in that regard. Nobody can teach you what you should do, because truth be told, everyone has a different tactic. Sometimes it’s all about being a presence, an aura if you will, that emanates right out of you. To this day I still remember the way this much more experienced teacher just came to my rescue. He merely stood at my doorway, and that was more than enough to silence my students into submission. A rookie cannot even hope to achieve that.
I think the reason why nobody teaches you this simple truth is that it’s a harsh truth: your first year will suck, you won’t always be able to control your classes, and you will have days where you’ll understand Ms Hoover and Mrs Krabapple, and see that Mr Feeny was way too idealized.
And that’s OK. If you can take it, you’re a teacher through and through. If you can’t, it’s not too late to find what you’re meant to be. There’s no shame in admitting defeat, and there’s no shame in deciding you took the wrong path in life and have opted to find the one for you. Yet another lesson life, not the classroom, teaches you.
