Teaching: A drug or an anti-drug?

Remember those old commercials where famous athletes or singers would talk about their motivations for living a drug-free life? At the end there was always a black screen and in white writing it read “Basketball” or “Music” or “Responsibility: My Anti-Drug.” Perhaps the glow of their celebrité  blinded us all from realizing that not once did an educator come on screen and declare, “Teaching: My Anti-Drug.” That´s because teaching doesn´t discourage drug usage. After a year and a half of children shouting at me, I’m fully convinced that drug usage might actually improve my effectiveness as a teacher… or at least make anarchic classes appear to my drug-addled brain as a musical montage of small soft-bodied puppets… (sometimes I wonder what hallucinating would be like) 

And now I´ve digressed into dangerous territory and need to clear things up: I don´t use drugs nor do I condone drug use and I´ve never ventured out into seedy underworld of Tacna, Peru to find an illegal substance to help make the pain of teaching go away.

 

I will say, however, that being a teacher is a stand-in for another drug: birth control. The following two-part argument will explain why, no matter how much you thought you loved children, you will no longer want any of your own after becoming a teacher.

The First Part: Children are irrational, dirty, loud, sticky, and selfish balls of energy that trample everything in their paths and leave in their wake the shredded remains of what, once, had been a promising, well-planned class full of cheerful songs and educational games. I never knew how much unadulterated rage bubbled inside of me until I witnessed third-grade troublemakers mastering the art of mob psychology and leading their classmates in revolt. I didn´t imagine that a group of prepubescent sixth-grade bullies could make me cry in class because they told me (in their high-pitched, still-uncracked voices) that they didn´t like the activity I planned. 

Children are vicious – the Hokey Pokey has devolved into a mosh pit in second grade. Children spend more time tattling than working – “Miss, he bumped my desk. She has gum. Oscar touched Emma´s pencil.” Children are cutthroat – the other team is always cheating, nothing is ever fair, let´s kick the kid who got the answer right. Children are self-centered – “Miss, he already had a turn!!!” (Umm, no he didn´t and, also, shut up.) Children are stupid – they beg for games and then can´t sit still for a three-minute explanation of the game. Children are dumb – we go outside to play a game and they start attacking their classmates after 15 seconds which means we have to go inside again. Children are idiots – they can´t stand in line and wait their turn and instead violently shove each other, cut in line, and push people over (then complain when I tell them they´ve lost their privilege to play the game). CHILDREN ARE NOT INTELLIGENT CREATURES – I repeat the directions three times while making sure everyone is paying attention and then I let them begin working; 15 minutes later at least six students will come up and ask, “Miss, are we supposed to copy that thing your wrote?” 

I like things to be clean and organized. I´m practical and pragmatic. I like to discuss actions and consequences. I like smiling, happy people. I like things to go well. I like people who appreciate me and respect me. Children are none of these things (because the smiling, happy ones are actually smiling because they´re evil). Why on Earth would anyone ever voluntarily choose to bring a little, irrational being into their home? 

The Second Part: Having children terrifies me because a parent is responsible for the child´s educational, moral, spiritual, and physical upbringing – and that´s a lot of pressure! I watch how my students interact with me and with one another, I see how they approach and value education, I see the work ethic they have, I see how they´re aggressive or mean or shy or unconfident. I can tell so much about their parents and home-life just by observing them. The kids who are not shown affection at home constantly want hugs and attention. The kids whose parents don´t encourage education come to school without notebooks or completed homework and enter first grade without understanding the alphabet. The kids whose parents are strict cry when they get a bad grade or accidently smudge the writing in their notebooks because their parents may physically harm them when they take it home. The kids who live with older siblings or elderly relatives often come to school with disheveled uniforms and dirty hair.

In my role as a teacher I see how little impact teachers and education make on a child if the child isn´t being supported and encouraged at home. We spend such little time with them compared to the time they spend with their parents; values, confidence, proper conduct, social skills, and work ethic are taught in the home and have to start at an early age.

Many of my students´ parents work long hours outside of the home – just like I envision doing one day. If they struggle to financially support their family and spend enough time with their children, how will I be able to do that one day? I would never want my child´s teacher to look with pity upon my child and think, “It´s a shame she works so much. Her son would be smarter/nicer/more polite is she helped him with homework and taught him some manners.”

My own parents are amazing people who raised (I like to think) two awesome kids. They worked hard in and out of the home but always had time for Chris and me. They were tutors, fieldtrip chaperones, Scout leaders, soccer coaches, volunteers, and so much more and still managed to get well-balanced meals into our stomachs three times a day. Great parents need to be selfless, loving, and patient, always putting their children´s happiness and well-being first. I feel terrified by the immense responsibility of raising a child and the incredible examples I have to live up to. I´m not at a point in my life, yet, where I´m willing to unhesitantly put someone else before me. I´m trying day by day (thanks to the wonderful example of my parents, my Peruvian host family, my awesome colleagues, and the concerned and invovled parents of some of my students) to be a less-selfish person. But I´m not there quite yet.

And then there´s the nightmare: I don´t have nightmares about sleeping through exams or standing in the school cafeteria without any pants on; the one recurring nightmare I´ve had, maybe four times in my life, is finding out I have small children, though I don´t remember ever having them or raising them. I´m distraught to think that I´ve neglected and abandoned my children. 

Twice this dream has then taken a very strange turn in the action-adventure direction as I discover that the children are not actually mine and someone is framing me and trying to distract me so they can commit a crime (at which point I go full-CIA mode and kick some ass, save the day, and make sure the children are returned to their proper parents). 

Twice though, I´ve dreamt that the children were, in fact, mine, and I spend the remainder of the dream trying to make up to them all the time I´ve missed. I imagine a dream expert would say that this points to my own feelings of inadequacy as a teacher and educator, my fears that I´m not giving my students what they truly need, and my desire to be the best teacher and person I can for my students, perhaps, to make up for what they might not be getting at home. 

Conclusion: I may not be ready for my own children for a long time (I repeat, a very long time), but I do know the lessons I´ve learned as a teacher will help me be a better parent – I know what kind of support kids need at home to make them love learning and to help them become good students.  I know that no matter how much they drive you crazy, kids just want to love you and be loved by you. I know that mobs of sugar-powered first graders screaming my name and literally knocking me over with the force of their hugs is a sign that I must be doing something right. I know kids believing in themselves and getting a genuine compliment or a great grade on a test makes all the stress worth it. I know that, at the end of the day, I´ll remember the good moments (or the funny ones - like little Valeria giving her classmate, Angelo, an unwanted haircut) much more than the bad ones. I know that teaching is the best and hardest thing I´ve ever done and that I wouldn´t trade it for anything. 

And I know that when all else fails, bribe them with candy.