Teaching inspires new kinds of frustration that you probably can't realize until you start teaching. It pairs your own insecurities from when you were in school with a strange, new authority (and a salary). As students, most of us were insecure in one way or another, lacked authority, and were forced to be at school. Our frustrations had no agency. And while some of us found small zones of control in a social group, sport/club, academic class, hobby, or talent, we were mostly controlled by adults. And some of us had emotional breakdowns, addictions, self-harm, and were victims of bullying. As a teacher, insecurities from school come back, but they change form and evolve in weird ways:
All of these frustrations are relative. Some teachers only have some of them, but I bet that all teachers have at least one. And I'm SURE I left a lot out. But I recently read a book that has made all this easier. It's really shifted the way I think about teaching. And it inspired a new frustration - WHY DIDN'T ANYONE GIVE THIS TO ME SOONER?
This should be required reading at all colleges, along the same lines as Focus, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, I Read It, But I Don't Get It, Why Won't You Just Tell Us The Answer?, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Savage Inequalities, In a Different Voice, and I'm sure dozens more seminal books that other teachers have benefitted from.
The book is called Teaching with Love and Logic, and it is surprisingly relevant today, despite being written in the mid-90s by two older, white, male teachers. I'm going to have a series of posts about this book, because it really does encapsulate a lot of great ideas about behavior and restorative justice, pedagogy, and the social-emotional needs of learners. Stay tuned.
- We can feel targeted by students who bully us, but it feels different. If they were our peers, their methods would succeed at controlling and manipulating us. But we have the power to impose consequences on them, so while these students can make us feel bad, we don't need to feel powerlessness. We do control the situation, and yet, still feel vulnerable and targeted.
- We feel insecure about our knowledge and abilities when students ask tough questions, find contrary evidence, or challenge our inferences and opinions. Like in school, we still feel the judgment of students - nobody likes to feel stupid - but we also have different consequences for not knowing; while in high school, not knowing could lead to failing a class, as a teacher, our salary is on the line. We are compelled to learn more, but for a real reason, so we end up valuing learning in a much more purposeful and valuable way.
- We feel both our own pain and that of our students, sometimes dozens or hundreds of students. We have our own needs, but our students' needs push into our lives. Some of us can compartmentalize - they can turn off the job at the end of the day, or accept a lack of agency in someone else's problems. But for those of us who can't, it's a weight that doesn't lift. If you think about your students' pain for too long, it's debilitating - how many live in neglectful or abusive households, live in poverty, live in depression, live in academic struggle, live in constant doubt, live in constant fear. (Some good movies about this: Pariah, Eighth Grade, Girl Fight, Saved!, Precious, Thirteen, Elephant)
All of these frustrations are relative. Some teachers only have some of them, but I bet that all teachers have at least one. And I'm SURE I left a lot out. But I recently read a book that has made all this easier. It's really shifted the way I think about teaching. And it inspired a new frustration - WHY DIDN'T ANYONE GIVE THIS TO ME SOONER?
This should be required reading at all colleges, along the same lines as Focus, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, I Read It, But I Don't Get It, Why Won't You Just Tell Us The Answer?, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Savage Inequalities, In a Different Voice, and I'm sure dozens more seminal books that other teachers have benefitted from.
The book is called Teaching with Love and Logic, and it is surprisingly relevant today, despite being written in the mid-90s by two older, white, male teachers. I'm going to have a series of posts about this book, because it really does encapsulate a lot of great ideas about behavior and restorative justice, pedagogy, and the social-emotional needs of learners. Stay tuned.