Today's post is about a lesson learned, and all the good reflection it has sparked over my 5 years of teaching. One of my suite-mates from college, and a fellow education major, Emily (see her pretty picture below and in previous posts) reopened this wound earlier today with her own blog post. So I thought I might join in the walk down memory lane.
(Emily and Harper - not Miles)
The story begins with a class that Emily and I had to take to complete our education major: Educational Technology. Now, I have taken Ed Tech classes since then that are what I consider...oh....educational....and technological. This class was neither.
We learned PowerPoint. We learned how to turn on an overhead projector and then how to properly turn it off (it's an art, really). We learned how to oh so carefully change the slides in a slide reel. Seriously...a slide reel - this was a class taken after the year 1990, just to clarify.
Anyway, I digress. Emily pulled out a scratch piece of paper one day during class and we started writing notes back and forth. The topic of the note mainly centered on how bored we were, and how we couldn't wait to get out of class. I didn't think about it again when we left class and headed to the rest of our day.
Then, I was sitting in my next class when a teacher's assistant came and asked me to stop by my Ed Tech professor's office after class.......what?
I started thinking about how she probably wanted to thank me for doing a great job with changing slides or something, and took off towards our classroom when my current class was over.
As I bounced into my professor's office, something told me - TURN BACK, DON'T GO INSIDE. The something that told me this was the look on my professor's face, and the matching look on Emily's face when I saw her sitting right inside the office. Oh. Dear.
To make a long story short, our note almost forced this lady into early retirement. Emily had written something along the lines of "This class is for retards". I, of course, do not condone the use of this word in any derogatory manner, and neither does Emily, but we were stupid college kids writing a note in class. However, from the tears streaking down the face of the professor, she took this note VERY personally. She launched into a tirade about our insult to her teaching and about how she just "could not handle this right now" because of "issues" in her personal life (there were specifics mentioned - funeral preparations, mother-in-laws - I don't even remember). We sincerely apologized to this woman over and over and OVER again for the next hour, and left her office feeling like the worst people on earth.
So why am I sharing this lowest of the low moment for all to read? I'm telling it because at the time, even though I felt bad, I knew that something was wrong. I wasn't a teacher yet, so I didn't know what it felt like to have a room full of kids waiting to be entertained (pretty intimidating). But at the same time, I vowed that I would never let this happen to me - my personal life needed to stay as far away from my job as possible.
Thanks to that professor, I have kept this promise. I've had 17 year old kids say some bad things to me - ranging from the perverse to the flat out rude (see: "Mrs. Savage, don't be offended by this but have you gained weight?"). But I have kept my promise to myself, and to Emily. I might have shed a few tears from day to day in my career, but never EVER in front of my kids. If one my my students hurts my feelings, I talk to them and help them to see how this behavior is not one that works for them. I keep my emotions to myself...even if I'm having a bad day.....even if I'm mad at something David did.....even if I was feeling particularly fat at that moment, thank you very much.
My students are a great blessing to me. My stupidity and that professor's poor handling of the situation ruined any tiny amount of potential for a healthy teacher/student relationship. And any chance of me learning from her ended that day. We were completely in the wrong, but we still lost all respect for her.
Now, I'm stepping down from my tiny soapbox to say one final thing: teaching is the most rewarding career on earth. Whether you teach little ones who need help blowing noses or big ones who need help finishing Algebra, you're going to go home at the end of the day exhausted but fulfilled. My call into the "principal's office" of college showed me one thing: life is WAY too short to take things personally in the classroom.
