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School is starting in 10 minutes. I have a lot of kids who are going to be coming in, and sometimes, I wish I was a better teacher. I wish I was there for them more, and above all, I wish I could be myself in the classroom instead of trying to listen to the advice of other teachers who have a style that doesn’t suit who I am.
The school is a bubble for myself and the kids, insulated from the conditions of the outside, cruel world of the inner city. For a lot of them, the classroom and the school are the only safe places they feel. Sometimes I forget about that when I get into fight-or-flight mode in classroom management, and I wish I personally didn’t get into that mode, but that’s where I am right now. It’s unfortunate, but it is life as a new and nervous teacher.
Once the nerves go away, I think I’ll be able to take a step back during the actual school day, not after or anything like that. The school is the in-between space of the Venn diagram, an intersection of the lives of all these kids and all these adults. It is a cross-section of values, and in the special education world, these things become all the more complicated.
A good teacher always thinks about how everything is his/her fault. Teachers will have instinctual reactions to…
