Feelings of accomplishment, success, relief, freedom, and a little apprehension, gallop through my veins on this demure winter afternoon. My teaching career has ended. I taught choir to 50 junior high and high school students for eighteen weeks.
Many people whom I am very close to are in the teaching field, firstly my two best friends and my brother. Even so, I always kind of got the feeling that people who become teachers more frequently relish high school drama, and/or are unfit for any other career. There are obvious and many exceptions, see above. And in my community, a large amount of them seem to be married to farmers, not that there's anything wrong with that, simply a job that happens to be available anywhere. So my expectations of teaching, while acknowledging my total lack of preparation or experience, were on the low side. However, my lack of connection with youth, with the exception of being one a very short time ago, was about to be critically challenged. I was ready to be changed by this experience.
After about a week into it, I realized a truth of teaching: teachers gotta have their s*** together. Teaching multiple subjects a day, coaching a sport, sponsoring extra-curricular activities, and the constant stress of dealing with hormonal teenagers. This is life-consuming, with excellent vacation and benefits. I taught one class in the morning with one hour of prep time, and two classes twice a week in the afternoons. This was not exactly a high-stress situation, yet it occupied all my limited energy resources. As often happens, my real-life experiences tend to be playing the game of real-life.
Priority Number One: Classroom management. Learning cannot happen without it. I am more prone to the win-over-by-affection type of management than the yell-and-get-angry. This works perfectly in a high school classroom of 9 girls and 1 boy. Treat them with respect, and they do the same. However, a classroom of 22 junior high students won't provide the same docility. I had indigestion for the first month. I remember being a junior high student, and still have an abiding dislike for following rules, so, truth be told, I'm on their side. I can't be mad at them for acting the way they do, which ends up condoning it. Let me put it this way: there's a reason 12-14 year olds are put in their own school. To keep them from infecting the other students. To top it off, my 1-2 classes per week with them made it difficult to establish a relationship, or to teach anything of value. I also was ill-equipped to teach them music fundamentals which they so desperately needed after years of interim teachers. So I was failing doubly, at disciplining them and at actually teaching them something. Only a few weeks into the semester did I decide I couldn't carry on with it. The issue was never their level of affection for me. What junior high student doesn't love a nice teacher with a mohawk? But it is simply their nature to challenge authority. Although I got better at teaching, it never became easier.
Being around teenagers all the time is challenging. I didn't even like being one. Their desperate vying for acceptance should waken sentiments of pity in me, but I find it repulsive. This is certainly not to say the whole thing was negative. They are also each incredible, unique individuals who are developing their personalities and viewpoints. It's spectacular to witness. The younger ones are at a jumping off point where they get to choose their life paths, and don't even know it. Within a few years they will be divided, but right now their varied backgrounds and preferences interest each other and pull them together.
Although relief is mostly flooding out other emotions, I do feel a little like I'm letting these students down in giving up on them. They deserve a great teacher, which I am not. They deserve the Shelby Leylands, Marcia Keeles and Alex Millers of the world. To be a great teacher, you have to love teaching. And I don't. So it is the right choice for me, and I hope for them. My goal in teaching has been to keep the students in love with music, and I believe I succeeded, but now it is out of my hands.
