Imagine walking into a classroom, not as a student anymore, but as their teacher with very little experience with children under your belt. It was gut check time for me, time to see if this would be my career or not.
I imagined being eased into it over time, which I was, but when the day came that I was to “take over” two classes, I was certainty quite nervous. The school I did my student teaching in did not have a great reputation. The year prior, my master teacher had been carjacked just around the corner from the school, in broad daylight.
It was almost a given that some students would be killed in gang related violence or from outright neglect during the school year and by the way, it was a Middle School (grades 6-8). Almost every time I walked the halls for whatever reason, I would see students being taken away in handcuffs by sheriffs or campus police. Safe to say, I was not in Kansas anymore.
The lesson plan was fairly simple, popcorn reading of the textbook and answering review questions. Watching my master teacher, it looked pretty easy. I did not have an appreciation for how the teacher had built positive relationships with the students to get them to where it looked “easy”.
I got in front of the class, not really knowing a lot names, feeling a little out of place as a Caucasian male in a class of largely Hispanic and African-American students. I kept thinking about the movie “8 Mile” that had recently come out. The main character “Eminem” had gone through major trials to try and become a rapper, competing in brutal rap battles as literally the only light-skinned person in the room.
I started the lesson, the adrenaline shot through my veins. I looked at my master teacher who smirked at me. I tried to follow my lesson plan: link prior learning, objectives, standards, and to my chagrin the class seemed to be following along. Pretty soon, I was relaxing more and asking questions of the students, using the seating chart effecively, and making inferences about the currriculum.
The students actually seemed to appreciate what I was doing and gave me positive feedback. When a few of them started getting off task, my master teacher yelled at them something to the effect of, “What the hell do you think your doing?” and the students got back on task.
At the end of the lesson, the kids filed out, and I realized that this was something I could do, but it was going to take a lot of work, and boy was I right! Teaching, especially in its current incarnation in American schools presents a myriad of problems to be overcome, from overcrowded schools, underfunded classrooms, ineffective disciplinary techniques, enabling parents, and then of course actually trying to teach.
Twenty years later, I am still at and have found it to be a very rewarding career. The challenges actually keep me motivated because I get bored easily. I get paid to coach soccer and have spent a lot of time with my kids as they have grown up. Overall, it has been a very positive experience.
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