Teachers Are Losers

Sucks to suck.

God Bless them Primary School Teachers.

“ENOUGH!” I yelled out.

The warm-up came to a halt.

“I need you all to make a choice right now. You can either do the warm-up without complaining, or you can sit over there on the benches. One of these options helps your grade, and one of them does not. In either case, I don’t want to hear any more complaining.”

A student we’ll call Allison speaks up, “That’s bullshit, everyone is going to have an opinion. Everyone can speak.”

I’m frustrated, my heart rate likely doubled after hearing that… but I’m keeping my cool. “I am fully aware of your opinion and you’re welcome to it. You’ve made it quite clear. Now I need you to make a choice. Earn your grade without complaining, or have a seat over there.”

The student continued to curse but I had lucked out. The school psychologist had happened to stop by and watched the situation unfold. She invited Allison back to her office and saved me the trouble of having a conversation with the student right then and there. I thanked the school psychologist on her way out.

Unfortunately it was a rough way to start the class. Having a kid curse you out in the first five minutes is kind of like having forty floors to go in an elevator, and a guy walks in at level two and rips a fart.

It was suddenly like pulling teeth getting kids to work out. Some kids saw Allison rebel, so they felt like they should too. My student teacher and I had to coax, coddle, and threaten kids all through the workout and no one was enthused by the end.

I brought them into a circle after the workout and reminded them of the incredible biological mechanisms they had just unlocked by working out. “You just decreased your risk for anxiety! Increased your strength! Lowered your blood pressure! Released endorphins! All these things you just did for yourself!”

Usually when I give this speech I get some solemn nods and some claps. Sometimes kids pat themselves on the back. At the very least I usually get some smiles.

Nada. Nope. Not today’s 7th period class. Everyone’s eyes were elsewhere. Today, they weren’t having it. They may have heard it, but they certainly didn’t feel it. I sighed. Well, at least we had some time to play handball, that should turn the day around.

It didn’t.

Usually they’re chomping at the bit to compete. This time it was a struggle to get everyone into the game. Once we finally got it organized three of the kids quit. Private conversations, reminders about their grade, insinuating they were letting their teams down, every trick I could think of didn’t work. After trying for 5 minutes while the rest of the class just waited bored out of their minds, I simply reminded them of the consequences, and then I joined one team, and my student teacher joined the other. We played a sorry, unenthusiastic handball between eight people, and everyone left demoralized. It was just that kind of class.

After the kids left the gymnasium, I entered my office and started entering in grades. Then I turned on some Youtube and tuned out for a bit… until I noticed my student-teacher sitting at his desk awfully quiet.

“What’s up man?”

“Man, that’s just such a shitty way to end the day. I feel awful.”

“How come?”

“It was just such a bad class.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah… I mean, definitely. You saw them. No one wanted to do anything. There was no energy.”

“Okay. What should we have done differently?”

“...I don’t know. We greeted them at the door. Pretty high energy I thought. We got them to do the initial activity. The other classes loved rock-paper-shoot, loser does six lunges. They were kinda eh about it. Then we got screwed by that Allison girl. She just kept mouthing off, and then it felt like everyone was complaining. It just felt off. It was nowhere near as good as the other classes. You don’t feel bad about that class?”

I chuckled. “Nah man. It happens. Think about it. I mean sure, I probably could have found a better way to address Allison’s complaining before it spread to the rest of the class, but also, the girl has a point to a degree. She’s allowed to give her opinion… just not at the expense of derailing our class. After we removed her, think about the work we did to get the kids to work out. We kept at it. We talked to almost every kid there. We reminded them of the consequences to their grade. We tried to remind them of the bigger why behind working out. Then we tried an activity they usually liked.”

I snorted and continued, “Here’s the deal. There’s a million factors we don’t control. What emotional state each kid is in. Did something happen last class that put them in a shit mood? Whether or not a kid’s blood sugar is low. Whatever the fuck the vibes are for the day. We did a pretty damn good job. It’s just… sometimes, you don’t get to win.”

My student teacher paused for a moment and then asked, “Seems like you’re pretty at peace with what happened. What kind of class would you consider a loss?”

I paused and considered the question. My mind traveled back to all the classes I had in the past where I would yell because kids weren’t doing the activity, or all the times I lost my patience because I was explaining the directions for the fourth time in a row.

Or the time a kid threatened to bash my skull in with a fire extinguisher.

Or the time a kid tried to stab me with a pair of scissors after I separated her from a fight.

Or the time a sophomore class had an outright brawl in my gymnasium.

Now those… those were some bad classes…

I shook my head out of that thought tunnel and eventually said, “When I lose my cool. That’s a loss. If my emotions take the wheel and I start yelling and I start giving consequences out of anger instead of logic… that’s when I know I’ve taken an L”

He said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you take an L then.”

“Oh give it time. It’ll happen. One of these days one of the students is going to say something that’ll make me snap. You’ll see me react instead of respond. I’ll get pissed at something when I should have just given a cool response. Probably on a day when I got 6 hours of sleep instead of 8. That usually does the trick.”

“How often does it happen? You snapping?”

“My first year it probably happened everyday. I was fucking miserable. Wanted to leave the school. Almost did. Searched for a job during the next three years. Buuuut,” I start slowly nodding my head, “I just learned it’s easier to follow a ladder of consequences and take your emotion out of the picture. Now it happens far less frequently. I also have tricks. Little reminders before certain classes that the students in this one might annoy me, or ignore the directions. Take deep breaths before I start that class and remind myself it’s more about keeping my cool than controlling their behavior.”

“How often do you have a class like the one we had?”

“Depends on the kids. Some years I have classes like that all the time. Sometimes the classes are more than excited to do the work and play the game. Other times they’re totally apathetic. Sometimes, they really hate the workout and refuse. I just divorce myself from how I feel about it, and keep trying to find the things in class I can control.”

My student teacher takes that in and nods.

I add, “We’ve got 180 school days of the year. Five periods to teach a day. There’s not a chance in hell we’re going to hit it out of the park 900 times in a row. But if we focus on what we can do, we’ll hit more than a few home runs.” I clap him on the shoulder,

“Shake it off man, we’ve got a whole new ball game tomorrow.”

Sometimes, you get to win too =)

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*4 years ago, I read Kevin Kelly’s article, “1000 True Fans.” The gist of it goes like this. Create a following of people who become fans of what you do. Be so damn good at what you do that people want to give you money so you continue doing it.

Here’s what I do. I teach, and I write stories about it.

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