Re-Imagining the Classroom

a year as a teacher gone terribly horribly wrong... pt. 1

For the last year, I started teaching in an assistant position at a school. A private school none the matter, but a private school is all the same. As someone who had never before worked in a classroom or school setting, I was rushed very quickly into two roles that I was forced by virtue of my start date to conceive and estimate - mostly by following the bendy expectations in front of me.

My first day, drama. One child, who I later discovered was the most annoying kid to ever set foot in the classroom of my co-teacher who was in her 40th year of teaching. I did not know this when he found (at the same time as me) a post-it note attached to a math notebook he was passing out a sticky note that said “Dear (teacher), so-and-so is SO annoying! Can you please talk to their parents or something?”

Ouch! My heart dropped for this kid. He persisted for the rest of class unable to focus as he asked everyone who wrote this trying to get answers. None were given.

We moved on. And the next day occurred and the next. And his annoyance quickly became apparent to me. Not just his annoying streak but his bratty, self-absorbed, indigent, mean behaviors.

Yet, this child, the drama of the class, and the constant frustration weren’t what made me think, I am not in the right place or my nerves catch ablaze at the thought of coming back to work the next day. It was this truth that became so very clear to me as I heard the gripes and frustrations of everyone I worked with…

Teaching has become an industry. A corporation. An in and out factory that wrings the integrity out of children, teachers, and administrators. Although administrators are often the enemy to the teacher, placed at the top of a shh-shh secret pyramid, they too are living in multiplicitious self. Whether they were complaining openly or their sighs let on more than they’d say everyone was or is currently unhappy. Some are conscious of it and others not so much only vaguely aware something is not right.

If you’re a teacher reading this, you may roll your eyes and think administrators…? What do they have to worry about? They don’t have classrooms with drama sticking to the walls like glue nor do they have parents telling them how to do their jobs! They aren’t stretched to their limits to accomplish tasks that in reality, aren’t the end of the world, even though we treat them that way. Trust me my nerves are on fire too much.

Or you might be thinking, eh, teaching isn’t bad. It’s fine, it’s just fine. There are parts I like, like the amount of freedom I have in my classroom even though I loathe parent-teacher conferences and my classload is too big…

And if you’re an admin reading this you might sigh and say I know. I know it’s bad. The staff isn’t happy. Everyone is leaving. I’m supposed to have all these answers but I don’t. Or maybe I do! Maybe if I just find the right people? People who can work as hard as me! People who will go the extra mile… that;’s who we need. Bonus points if they don’t expect to solve every problem and drama under the sun. Double bonus points if they can sympathize with my problems.

Now the rub is not that these perceptions and experiences of being a corporate worker in a school exist, but rather they somehow don’t exist. We aren’t supposed to say that we are tired, or that it’s too much, or we are paid too little. We can’t point out that the king isn’t wearing clothes (at least not to the king himself).