In the fall of 2003, I abruptly switched careers: from award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist to public school teacher. My teaching career has been more bitter than sweet. Yet I am proud of my work and occasional accomplishments, each day go in with the attitude of making a positive influence on a generation growing up in a time very different from my school days long ago.
I wish the public knew or admitted what goes on when kids are in school. When it comes to students in mass, it’s as if there’s a strange temporary yet every cotton-picking day persona change not unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers. My mother, who’d also been a teacher, would say when I was growing up: The way a kid acts when his parents aren’t around, that’s the real kid. Kids are different when they are among their peers, and they are the majority in a classroom. They maintain an ‘us against them’ (students against the teacher) mentality. And … so did the rest of us when we were kids, worse when we were teens.
Another thing I was surprised to find about teaching in the public schools is the consistent problem with heating and AC ventilation. One room will be super cold year-round while another blazing hot. Not a single room is a comfortable temperature throughout the school year. And if anyone’s reading: THIS HAS A LOT TO DO WITH KIDS NOT LEARNING. When a kid is physically uncomfortable, you can forget about learning taking place. So our public schools’ HACV systems really should be fixed – like these systems operate in the business world and homes. I worked many jobs in the ‘real world’ (the non-school world) and there were hardly any heating or AC problems. Our schools should be as comfortable as our homes, banks, churches, shopping centers, and all public indoor spaces.
Following my mother’s advice concerning discipline management in the classroom, I’ve started every school year with my foot down. My rules are short and sweet: Listen, Respect, Participate & Be Careful. And can you believe how hard those rules are for students to follow? When I first started out as a teacher, I just assumed I was the one with the problem. That’s what administrators, college professors and teaching experts would say. I read every book to be a better teacher, researched online articles on discipline management, and attended every course to enact better discipline including Boys Town. To no avail. Kids will wear you down from day one to the very last minute of the school year. It’s why few adults stick with teaching long enough to retire. The average timespan is five years, with the great majority of people ever trying the teaching field lasting one to three years. I’ve seen new teachers quit the first day, the first week, the first month, and especially never to return after the December break.
Teachers that have what it takes to make it a career, I think, truly love the hunks of time off: a few national holidays, two weeks for winter, a spring break and now somehow a fall break and the legendary summers free! To the real world, it must seem teachers hardly work at all. I think back to my real-world working years, with its standard two-weeks only vacations, often as I continue teaching especially on a hard day (which is most days). And when push to comes shove, really finding another job and quitting, I take a breath and say “Na.” As long as society puts up with all this time off (and I think parents really like it, too), nothing’s gonna change. In the 21st century, we’re still not evolving to year-round school. I think we should. (Slap my mouth!) No really, I think we should. Year-round schooling would benefit students’ ability to maintain what they’ve learned.
Teaching: the hardest job
I look at the few teachers who are popular with their students. Kids of all ages light up at their sight, say hi and hug them, a mutual hug. I admire that characteristic. It’s uncanny. I can’t explain why some teachers (very few) are … beloved. I am not in their category, and neither was my mother. She’d always tell me as I continued this career that disciplinarians are not popular. Those are the choices as a teacher: the popular one whose students seemingly do what they want in their classrooms or the more authoritarian one whose classrooms and instruction are seemingly more structured. Parents have relayed to me their kids say I’m kinda strict. And those same parents respond to their kids, “Yea!” Maybe I’m on the right track.
Can you believe I’m still trying to figure out how to be a better teacher? Maybe that’s a good sign. I remember a bumper sticker when I was a kid: “I teach. I care.” That’s me. For now.
I’m getting older, well, my body is getting older, and I actually tried retirement a few years ago. It didn’t work out especially when the pandemic hit. You gotta have a lot of money to retire. So as we sang in the real work world: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.
Seriously, as a career teacher, I’ve seen some sad situations my students endure when not in school. If nothing else, I want to take their minds off their problems and get them mentally and emotionally to a better state. I know as kids, they’re not in charge of their lives. Yet the ‘power play’ is with the teacher, the authority in the classroom. I’d say the number one issue with ‘problem’ students is: They think they’re grown.
Back in college, the Education faculty would tell us students they want us to be Super Teachers. And by that they meant: caring for each and every student, having some fruit or cereal around for students who say they’re hungry and let them eat in class, purchase a neglected child appropriate shoes or a coat if needed, have some plants in the classroom (because they help the brain with learning), use lavender scents (to keep emotions calm), design our classroom to be organized with colorful décor that appeals to kids or the age we teach, paint the focus wall darker than the other three walls, display items important to us so our students get to know us better and more personally (like photos of our spouses, children, pets, vacations, or pictures of us at their age), sponsor after-school clubs, attend students’ extracurricular activities such as sports and performing arts, and provide all their teaching supplies (pencils, pens, paper, scissors, rulers, etc.). Wow. All that with an annual salary back then around $17,000.
Nevertheless, when I took on my first teaching job, that is what I did. The kids were rough, from very rough neighborhoods. God knows what they endured when not inside their school. My intention, regardless of the students’ attitude toward me as a new teacher, was to be the Best Teacher Ever. On day one, I fell flat on my face. Despite my ‘governmental reporting’ background, playing hardball with politicians and elected officials from city councils to state legislatures and the boys in D.C. plus investigative and feature series, school was the toughest beat. Kids say anything anytime anywhere and especially to your face. They’re not polite. They’re emotionally hurtful and a few physically combative. I’ve been kicked, pinched, cussed out, shoved, bitten and scraped with a sharp object. My job was to be professional. I commenced to high standards even if a handful of my students participated. At my first school, I had a headache every single day from start to finish, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Bent over backwards
So within four years, I found myself at another school and pushed my students even harder for success—their success. And it was while reading the results from our first attempt at a UIL contest, where we/I failed miserably, that for the first time my back gave out. It was like suddenly a ton of bricks fell on my back. My backbone felt broken, twisted. I couldn’t breathe. I never let on with my students my back just went out.
And I should have. I should have been honest with them about the pain I was experiencing. That kind of honesty is what the popular teachers do. They tell their students everything about them. I remember those kind of teachers: They were usually young and attractive, sometimes single but then dating and soon married, talked to us about buying clothes or dating, dancing at clubs or seeing some famous music entertainer at a concert, getting a new pet, going on a great vacation, eating exotic foods at a restaurant.
Not me. My theory has been I’m there to teach not be the kids’ friend. So that day my back gave out, I somehow got through the class and called a doctor. Through X-rays, pain shots and prescription pain pills, there was nothing wrong with my back. The pain was unbearable and real—yet maybe psychosomatic.
Throughout the first half of my teaching career, my back went out at least a dozen times. It would go out after summers off right when we were getting ‘back’ to school when we should be energized and up for a new challenge but instead were told of new rules, regulations and teaching methods we must follow. My back would give out right at major events I was leading when I was relying on dozens of students, from assorted impoverished home lives, to show up and never knew if they would or not. Determined to keep teaching, the good news is my back hasn’t gone out in years thanks to chiropractic therapy. One advised against standing eight hours a day. (Principals expect teachers to be standing and walking around the room checking students’ work.)
These days the latest problems in the schools are students with phones and ear buds. Kids literally tune out teachers, not to mention the lessons. I appreciate all the countries (Great Britain and China, to name two) and all the states in the U.S. that are finally banning phones for students in school. Any educator could see the HUGE mistake letting kids have phones at school would be. Kids are not adults. Learning will not take place when a student is constantly checking the phone. Ditto for wearing ear buds … in class. I suppose the college kids do it, but these distractions are the number one reason why public school scores have dropped dramatically. Constant cell phone use has scrambled the brains of some people, like they’re addicted. I see it every day. It’s because they’re young, at the beginning of their lives.
Teaching through the pandemic—when teachers were expected to teach online and society actually presumed school-age kids would stay focused throughout online classes—brought to mind the ancient philosopher Socrates. He was the consummate teacher, showing us teaching and learning are best in person.
Twenty years in the teaching biz has taught me more about myself, traits I needed to correct or adjust in dealing with young people and all people. I know I’ve made a positive difference in the lives of some of my students, which number more than 3,000 by now. Despite the extreme lows and not near enough highs, the emotional anguish, being at the center of our society’s myriad problems—teaching has been an honor. And every day I’m still trying to figure out how to do it.