There's tension in teaching

After speaking with many mentor teachers, it sounds like the role of the "educator" has drastically changed throughout the decades. There's plenty of newspaper articles, blogs, Pinterest memes, and Facebook posts about such matters, so I won't elaborate. I can only speak of my own experience. While not particularly lengthy, is already quite colorful. For me, teaching has been a wonderful, terrible, complicated, character-building experience. There are many ups and downs to being a so-called "young" teacher. In addition, there are the quirks, which aren't necessarily good nor bad.

One such quirk would be the odd little moments where I feel more comfortable talking to students instead of the other adults in the building. With my students, I can show my creative, engaging, humorous and sometimes silly self, but with adults, I feel like I have to be on my best behavior. There's the ever-present tension of impending teacher evaluations, the attempt to gain respect from the more experienced colleagues, the endeavor to appear competent at all times.

There are days where I feel highly productive and can write things like this:

As teachers, I do agree that it's important to think about our lessons from the perspective of our students. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm designing a lesson that I simply like, rather than a lesson that will most help students. Then, I try to make proper adjustments and think, "Will they understand this? What will make this content more memorable?" Later, after teaching a lesson, I find a discreet way to ask students if they liked a particular assignment or task. If the majority answer is yes, then I feel like it was a successful day.

Yet, there are other days where scenes such as the one below are unavoidable:

Me: (passing out a fresh stack of copies, feeling so good) Ok, guys, make sure you are working quietly on your paper....

Student: Mine doesn't have a back to it!

Me: What....

Another student: Why are there two number 6's on this? Did you mess up, Ms. Gaddis?

Me: (dying on the inside) Umm kay, two of you need to share a paper, and yes, two number 6's was just a mistype. You can still answer both.

Student #3: What is it we're supposed to be doing again?

Ha. Yep, teaching can be such a monumental force of responsibilities and emotions, but I don't regret the job. Nope. It's great, and I'm not quitting.

  

Sometimes, STRANGE things happen. Pop quiz: what is unusual about this picture? Oh, and yes, this actually occurred last semester. Also, to protect student privacy, I attempted to blur student faces, but....