“Facing the Lions”
By: S Johnston
Tags: Leadership Skills, Journey, Teachers, Teaching, Classroom

Photo by Nasser Alhamdan on Unsplash

I feel for my teacher friends. Not just the new ones. I’ve been teaching twenty years, and I still have rough days. Days where I feel like I’m not cut out for this.

Teaching is hard work. Not like digging ditches or working in a coal mine hard. It’s emotional, mental work. You know in the circus when the lion tamer faces off against a lion with a chair in one hand and a whip in the other? That’s teaching. Except — you have no chair, no whip, and there are thirty-eight lions.

Metaphors abound. It’s hard. I’ve had my share of bad days and hard days. I’m an over thinker and at the same time, I truly want to change the world. When I fail to make a difference where I thought I could, I see it as a personal failure. I doubt my value as an educator, my ability, and my impact just as much or more so than any other teacher.

I plan, revise, and plan again for five different classes per week.

Components of an effective lesson? ✔️ Aligned State standards? ✔️

All the other parts and pieces that go into a lesson plan? ✔️

However, plans go by the wayside when a kid is in trauma. Plans go by the wayside when kids are fearful because there has been yet another school shooting. Plans don’t matter when you realize a 12th grader checks out and acts out because he can’t read. We do our best to cross all the T’s and to dot all the I’s. It’s part of the job, the time consuming, mental gymnastics part of the job. Plan everything, but do it in pencil. Plan, but have a back up plan, and an emergency plan in case the back up plan fails.

Some days, a kid says they love you and that you are their favorite. Some days, a kid says they hate you. Some days, you talk without interruption and kids listen. Some days, no one cares, and you might as well teach your lesson to the pigeon in the quad. Some days it’s smooth sailing, and you’re a classroom MPV. Some days you drown. You just drown.

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Since early August, I’ve risen with or before the sun to do my best to impart my love of literature and the written word on teenagers. Most of the time I feel that I was born to do this. I can’t believe that my middle-aged mind remembers so much detail about history and vocabulary, and idiosyncratic authors. Sometimes, I think working at Starbucks would be fun, and I’d get a discount on coffee.

For twenty years I’ve vacillated between “to teach or not to teach?” My destiny or my destruction? Will another year in a classroom bring me joy or doubt? See, this is where the mental gets real. On Monday I’m my very own teacher of the year, on Wednesday I am a fraud. On Friday I race out of the building with the relief of a clear mind and the freedom to drink coffee after 4 o’clock without sabotaging myself and the waiting 5:00 AM alarm clock.

I cry for other people’s children. I lose sleep over the inequities in the system. I rage over the lack of financial support for the system that literally opens the door for all other professions. I want to make a difference. I want to change things. I feel empowered but helpless; well-versed yet idealistic; important yet invisible. I wonder if I’m even qualified to be a barista.

These feelings swirl through me every minute of every day. Everyday I am also a woman, a mother, a wife, a friend. Everyday I am an adult who is still working through her own childhood trauma. Everyday I am a middle-aged women who looks around an sees no parents, no siblings, no extended family in her own life. An island among continents — one small voice in a nation of experts and advocates.

The mental toll of life weighs on us all. I love what I do. I feel grateful for the opportunity to be a part of so many young people’s lives. I am blessed to have so many amazing colleagues in my circle. Yet, there are days when I’m ready to turn in my keys and walk away.

I’ve shown grace to people I should have confronted. I’ve allowed toxicity to rent space in my brain. I’ve let hopelessness bowl me over, and self-doubt fester into self-deprecation. These are my issues, but nonetheless, they rise to the top, surpassing accolades, evaluations, and awards. They whisper, “Who do you think you are?” They are louder than any motivational coffee mug ever has been.

Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

We all have bad days. We all have hard days. I write about mine. Today was a hard day, but now I am ready to tackle tomorrow. I think I can, I think I can. If I’ve made it this far…

CEO or missionary, bus driver or tiny house builder, I imagine we all have our days. I’ve had great ones. Ones that have added light to my life. I guess I have to let that light shine through the darkness of a bad day.

I’m ready to face the lions, and I just pray that they are kittens in disguise.

#thisteachersjourney