"Welcome to Being a Teacher"

Last night I was Skyping with my high school Spanish teacher/advisor. We have kept in touch over the years and I consider her a great friend and mentor. I was complaining to her about the hoops I have to jump through for my TEFL certification and after about five minutes of listening to me bitch she interrupted me and said “Laura, welcome to being a teacher…”

It seems I am just now grasping all that comes with being a teacher. There are amazing times, when my students are sponges and taking in everything that I am teaching them. There are not so amazing times when I spend a whole class period explaining one word. There are times of pure joy, like when every student passed my first exam. There are times of pure frustration, like today, when I caught a student cheating on my test. Sweet, innocent Angie…

Yes, the same Angie that has given me gifts… a spandex shirt, and a dirty pink tank top. I was shocked when I noticed the little piece of paper that she was cupping in her hand. My heart dropped as I walked towards her desk and her guilty eyes met mine. There was no hiding it. She was caught. I took the piece of paper from her and asked her who wrote it. “I did.” I asked her if she wrote it before or during the test. “Before.” I looked over it and realized that most of her answers were wrong on the cheat sheet and that there were words on it that I never even taught them. I am afraid one of her parents wrote it for her… that bothers me on a complete different level. I took her exam from her and told her to sit until everyone had finished their exams. She held her tears back, and I held mine back. Oh yes, I cried a little on the inside.

Once everyone was finished with their exam I was over my sympathetic reaction and had moved on to being pissed off about Angie cheating. Angie fled the room and burst into tears. I went to my director and told her that I wanted to give Angie a zero on the exam for cheating and my director agreed it was the right thing to do. I dramatically ripped up the exam, and students gasped. It was the talk of the school. “Teacher ripped up Angie’s exam because she cheated.” Damn right I did and I’ll do it again if I have to. Needless to say, no one else cheated on their exams the rest of the day.

So the written exam didn’t go as well as the oral exam… I guess that was to be expected. Some students misspelled words, even when they were given a word bank. That was frustrating. Three students failed. I have to keep in mind that some students just aren’t good test takers. I was never a good test taker. I struggled in middle school. However, I was fortunate enough to have parents and teachers that cared about my education and got me all the help I needed to better understand how I learn. I am still getting to know my kids and how they learn. I am hoping by the next exam I will have figured out each student’s strengths and weaknesses to better help them navigate through learning English.

So being a teacher isn’t always joyful and rewarding. And I think I have confirmed what I’ve always thought to know about myself, I am not cutout to teach little ones. However, I am going to do my best to stay motivated… because the joyful moments, and the rewarding moments… they are so worth it. Seeing my first grader, Candy, light up when I told her she made a 98% on her exam today, it warmed my heart… that was a rewarding moment. Those are the moments I am going to cherish.