I’ve been teaching for most of the last forty years and I still ask myself if I’m good teacher or an imposter. I wonder if I was “meant to be” a teacher or if I stumbled into it.
For the first part of my career I was a middle school history teacher although I did a lot of subbing before and after. I know for a fact that a lot of students loved me. I was an interesting and innovative teacher who did his level best to make history come alive and create connections in history with the world of today. I was dedicated, hard-working and on top of that a “fun” teacher with a rich sense of humor. It can be argued that I leaned too heavily into that humor and brought an element of silliness to the classroom. For a lot of students this was a welcome change from the drudgery they experienced in a lot of classrooms.
I was meticulous about the tests I wrote and the projects I assigned. Then again I was a lazy grader often not giving students the feedback that they deserved. I met with students on a regular basis and tried to find ways to motivate the ones who needed it. They knew I cared.
My biggest flaw was that I handled discipline poorly. I was inconsistent, strict at times, loosey goosey at others. Adolescents need consistency. I was also impatient and at times temperamental. Side effects to medications I was on for panic and depression sometimes made matters worse. It was an odd profession for me considering I suffer fools badly. Still most students and parents were happy with me and I was showered with compliments at various times.
My biggest problem was an inability to get along with administrators who for the most part disliked me. I was oppositional and questioned decisions and orders and rules. Far from being able to kiss ass I was a pain in that ass. This came back at me in waves. I was always being scrutinized and criticized by administrators. It didn’t help that most of them were incompetent. Certainly my relations with higher ups tainted my teaching career and drove me out of public schools. I could have handled it better.
I safely landed in the world of teaching in English language centers like EF, LSI and Kaplan (I’m still at Kaplan). Here the results have been decidedly better. After stumbling through my first year or so I’ve been universally loved by students and administrators. Nonetheless I still, at times, feel like an imposter. I’ve never strictly followed the curriculum at any school. I give short shrift to certain grammar topics such as the passive voice and reported speech preferring to focus on what I consider more important topics such as writing correctly.
So I’ve never been a by-the-book teacher but I get results and plaudits. I also love what I’m doing. I variously loved and hated being a public school teacher but there’s little not to like about teaching English to eager learners from all over the world (I’ve had students from over sixty different countries). I spend one helluva lot of time either alone or just with my wife. I’m not a social butterfly. But I like people and in my job I get to interact with them daily. I’ve had a few jerks, a few who are lazy a few but for the most part they’re darlings and we have fun.
Sometimes life doesn’t take us where we want to go but we end up where we need to be all the same. I don’t suppose I am an imposter. More accurately I’ve been incredibly lucky.
No comments:
Post a Comment