Thursday, September 08, 2005
My New Face
There's an old teaching axiom that says you must never smile at your students before Christmas. The idea is that after four months or so of consistent seriousness, classroom management ceases to be an issue for the remainder of the year.
Given how cruddy I felt after my first day, I sought out advice on how to remedy the situation and a veteran teacher urged me to reconsider my demeanor towards my students. "You're too nice..." she said. The next day (yesterday), I tried to take her words into account and put on a new persona. Tried to put the fear of God into them from Day 2. And it worked...at least it worked better than the first day. So it may be true after all.
This gives me cause for hope, and also doubt. Hope, because perhaps if I can maintain this new persona consistently for the next few months, I may find I actually enjoy my work. Fear however because despite my experience, I fear that I may not be disciplined enough to keep this new face on for so long.
There's an old teaching axiom that says you must never smile at your students before Christmas. The idea is that after four months or so of consistent seriousness, classroom management ceases to be an issue for the remainder of the year.
Given how cruddy I felt after my first day, I sought out advice on how to remedy the situation and a veteran teacher urged me to reconsider my demeanor towards my students. "You're too nice..." she said. The next day (yesterday), I tried to take her words into account and put on a new persona. Tried to put the fear of God into them from Day 2. And it worked...at least it worked better than the first day. So it may be true after all.
This gives me cause for hope, and also doubt. Hope, because perhaps if I can maintain this new persona consistently for the next few months, I may find I actually enjoy my work. Fear however because despite my experience, I fear that I may not be disciplined enough to keep this new face on for so long.
