The hardest year of my life was my first year of teaching. Riding the A-train home at the end of another grueling day, I had my familiar daily epiphany: 鈥淚 have no idea what I鈥檓 doing.鈥�
Then I had a new, even more disturbing realization: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like my class.鈥�
It didn鈥檛 make any sense. I liked every single kid 鈥� individually. Tough-guy Anthony, whose sullen glare served as a shield for a tender heart. Jahlissa, with her attitude and one-liners. She once tried to get out of a letter home by leaving a message on my voicemail in the deepest, smoothest voice her 9-year-old self could manage:
鈥淵es, hello, this is Mrs. Rawlings, Jahlissa鈥檚 mother, and she said you keep getting her in trouble for no reason even though she don鈥檛 do nothing and the other kids are the ones bothering her, so don鈥檛 send no more letters home and, um, don鈥檛 call me back!鈥�
Even when misbehaving, my 4th graders were adorable and hilarious individuals. But taken all together, as a group, I didn鈥檛 enjoy their company. I got frustrated with their refusal to do the simplest things I asked of them, like putting down their pencils and looking up when I turned off the lights.
I had discovered a glaring exception to my own 鈥渟moothie rule.鈥� If you only put in ingredients that taste good on their own, you鈥檙e guaranteed a good smoothie. Ice cream, strawberries, and peach-mango juice? Rest assured that it will be delicious. But throw in a handful of wheat germ, chopped kale, or鈥攎ore ghastly yet鈥攕pinach, and you鈥檙e playing a sensory game of Russian Roulette.
I liked every 鈥渋ngredient鈥� in my class, but the collective smoothie tasted terrible. Why?
My dad, in a rare prophetic moment, once told me, 鈥淪ometimes people go into teaching because they love babysitting their niece or nephew, so they think they like kids. But really, they like one kid鈥攏ot 30 kids all at once.鈥�
In time, I figured out how to solve the conundrum. Most new teachers do, no matter how hopeless it feels early on in that first brutal year.
I still have days when I don鈥檛 enjoy the company of my own class. But now I know what to do about it.
1. Realize That the Problem Is Probably Not the Students
Fifteen years later, the first few weeks of school are still hard. But I have made a solemn pledge to resist the lure of punishments and rewards during those initial hard days, because they often treat the symptom while ignoring the disease鈥攚hich I now realize is usually my own teaching.
A few weeks into my first year, I realized my students鈥� misbehavior had very little to do with my various behavior charts, table points, and marble jars. It had a lot to do with flaws in my lessons.
I learned to fix those flaws. I began to talk less, and let the kids talk more. I ditched our abysmal math textbook, and tried to get the materials for the next lesson passed out ahead of time so fumbled transitions wouldn鈥檛 cause a 32-student collapse.
I began to think through each day from the kids鈥� point of view instead of my own. What would they get to do, say, think, and create? What would they struggle with?
I realized something else important, too. My dad had not only diagnosed the problem; he had provided me with the solution. If he was right and in reality I liked one kid at a time, not a defiant little 4th-grade mob, the solution was clear: Make sure I got plenty of chances throughout the day to interact with one kid at a time.
I built in more , and figured out how to make guided reading happen so I could engage in a conversation with five kids instead of a lecture with all 32. I found times to connect with my students one-on-one during recess, when I wasn鈥檛 in the disciplinarian role of trying to make them sit still or stay silent in the hall. Ten minutes playing soccer could change my whole relationship with a student who had never smiled at me before.
A month later, I had a much happier epiphany on my way home from work: 鈥淚 love my class.鈥�
2. Get to Know the 鈥楬ard Kids鈥�
Certain students are easier to like than others. Xiomara, who looks like the next Disney princess, came up to me the second day of school and whispered, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to invent a new princess. She has a scar by her eye, and she fights bad guys.鈥� I loved the girl on sight.
But the kids who are sullen, defiant, or wild can be a little harder to like鈥攖hough, of course, they are often the ones who need us the most. Those are the kids I invite to have lunch with me in the classroom early on in the year. They鈥檙e the ones I ask to help me in the classroom before the other kids come in, or make sure to hang out with for a little while at recess.
Robert Reich, the U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, once who were vulnerable inside but would only let you glimpse that vulnerability in rare moments.
Those moments don鈥檛 happen by accident. We have to make them happen by design.
3. Don鈥檛 Take Out Your Frustration on Your Students
Sometimes my students act in ridiculous way, and they deserve a reprimand. But when I speak to them more harshly than I should, the real reason often has little to do with their behavior.
Maybe I didn鈥檛 sleep well, or was struggling with something in my personal life. Maybe I was angry about some new state regulation that made it harder to do my job. Most often, I was frustrated at myself for a botched lesson.
I have to remind myself of the quote by author Mary Anne Radmacher: 鈥淐ourage doesn鈥檛 always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, I鈥檒l try again tomorrow.鈥�
When I put in the work it takes to get my teaching right, make a connection with every kid, and build a peaceful little community in my classroom, the misbehavior mostly evaporates.
Teaching becomes a joy. The kids work hard and treat each other respectfully for the right reasons. I get to use all my time to teach, rather than constantly doling out rewards, moving down clips, and threatening various consequences.
But it takes time. It takes a lot of patience, compassion, and deep breaths. Without the punishments and rewards I used to lean on, the first few weeks of school are harder now. But the nine months after that are easier.
Seeing Students Clearly
Teaching is the hardest work I know. It鈥檚 hard for good reasons鈥攊t matters, it鈥檚 complicated, and we drive ourselves to be better every day and every year.
It鈥檚 also hard for bad reasons. In the 15 years since No Child Left Behind smacked down on classrooms like a hammer on an egg, many schools have been steadily stripped of everything that matters most鈥攆rom art and science to recess and critical thinking. During that time, our job as teachers has gotten steadily more punitive, time-consuming, and demanding鈥攚ithout any increase in salary, professional autonomy, or collaboration time to balance out those negatives.
But we can鈥檛 let the frustration, exhaustion, and absurdity drive us to a point where we no longer enjoy the children in our care. They can sense immediately whether we like them鈥攏ot just in general, but at any particular moment.
We have to make sure, in the hardest of those moments, that we continue to see them clearly. Their faces. Their struggles. Their talents.
We have to remember that it鈥檚 hard to be a kindergartner, or a teenager.
We have to see not only what they need from us, but what they have to offer us. Their joy. Their curiosity, compassion, and humor. Their flashes of insight and wisdom.
If we can do that, we will eventually come to love the whole messy collection of hilarious, emotional, joyous individuals who make up that collective miracle: our class.
