Who am I as a teacher?
Who am I trying to be as a teacher?
These are two things that I think on often. Why did I become a teacher? Why am I still a teacher? Was it simply to get my summers off? Or is there something more. Do I really even enjoy teaching? And what part of teaching is it that I can look forward to every day?
This year has been a very big year for me in terms of figuring out some answers to these questions. In part I think this is because I am now teaching something that I really love to learn and share with the students… film. At the same time, I think I’m becoming more comfortable with myself and my place in the classroom.
I have, in the past, and likely still to some degree, been a different person at “work” than I am when I am not being a “teacher.” As I have said before this is because I have felt that there needs to be some distance between myself and the students so that the respect and authority is there.
I’m not sure that this is right.
Over the past few weeks, since the start of the most recent term, I’ve let more and more of my own personality creep into my teaching practice. Rather than playing the role of authority at all times, of taking a moral high ground, of being the disapproving older, more mature teacher, I’ve begun to, for lack of better words, lighten up a bit and, at least on some level, connect with the students more. If something is funny, I’ll laugh. I might follow it up by saying “that is so inappropriate,” but rather than getting mad, or rather, pretending that I’m mad – because that’s my role as a teacher, I’ll be myself. I think the students have responded well to this.
Well, now that I’ve ranted on a bit I realize that I really haven’t answered very many of the questions. I guess who I want to be as a teacher is someone who enjoys going to work everyday. That’s it. I want to wake up and look forward to spending time with my classes. How I get to that point is what I’m working at. I don’t expect that every student will love my class, nor do I pretend that I’ll even like all of my students. But what I do hope for is a classroom where I feel comfortable to be myself and where I am able to share with students, with people, what I know and what I want to learn about.
If you have any ideas on how I do this, please share them…
I don't have any answers for you Brent but I do also believe that the more I can be myself the more I have to offer to my students. Being able to be comfortable being myself instead of taking on a role as "teacher" has been a learning journey for me though; probably it is for most teachers especially when we start when we are young. It has meant I've had to accept that I have nothing to hide behind when my students don't like me. It may well be really me that they don't like, not the teacher-me.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more influential books I've read that has helped me, beside's Parker Palmer's book The Courage To Teach, which we talked about last night, is Alfie Kohn's book Beyond Discipine: from Compliance to Community. I have great respect for Kohn's understanding of how the power structures in our schools work against our being ourselves as teachers. He goes even farther though to suggest that they also work against real learning, and I'd have to agree. It is a book well worth reading.