Learning and Growing

Learning and Growing: How to face facts about yourself and set goals 

by Colleen Guzman

               So another year of teaching has come and gone and all that is left is an empty classroom. This has been my classroom for 3 years now and I have a fondness and even an attachment to it. I mean why wouldn't I, it is my room. So when we received the email with our content and classroom assignments I didn't even glance at it because I was confident that it was going to be BAU (business as usual). Not moments after the email was sent I receive a text message from a colleague shocked by the whole email, "Did you see where you will be next year?" In fact I hadn't because I figured I would be in good old K104 as usual so why check. I opened the email and sure enough I was being moved to an upstairs science room. You may be asking yourself, what's the difference.  Well all of the science rooms are fairly similar except mine. My science room is the smallest of all the rooms, it is the only one with no windows to the outside world and it is the only one that has doors on either side of the room so if child A is distracting you up front then child B can escape from your room from the back door. So now the paranoia sets in. "Why are they moving me?" "What have I done wrong?" I mean I can think of a million things I have done wrong because I am still human after all, this is only my 5th year teaching, I've never had a mentor teacher ever, etc. (see how I have all my excuses lined up) I spent the whole week moving my things to the new room trying to decide what I had done wrong to deserve this, and I even tried to convince the teacher I was swapping with that it was I who had done wrong and not her because I found out that she was feeling the same way. Every single doubt, fear, despair of not being good enough crept into my mind and took hold. By Wednesday afternoon I was having a panic attack in the prep closet in the back of my room, hyper-ventilating and weeping like a baby. I had to get a handle on this and get one quickly. 

      

                Friday was our work day and by noon the other teacher and I had exchanged keys and now it was time for us to organize things in our new rooms and get to know them better. I sat in my new room and I looked at the sun shining through the window in the room. The sun! It was beautiful and unbelievable and yet still felt like I had done something wrong. I sat for awhile and I thought about what all of this meant. I looked at each of the things I felt I had done wrong and the excuses for why those things had happened and I decided that instead of letting those things be these horrible clouds over me I was going to turn those things into goals that I set for myself. Now this is a hard transition for me because initially setting goals means that I am not good at what I am doing and therefore must be extremely horrible at it and I should just be removed immediately. It takes me some time to walk myself through those feelings and remind myself that every journey is about learning and growing and that setting goals can get you there. So I began to set goals. 

               I look at the first possibility. Perhaps I was moved upstairs because I am too friendly with the 8th grade students, I mother them entirely too much, I take them into my classroom when they have been kicked out of their classroom, etc. I have already talked to my principal about this recently and I know this is something that I need to work on. By moving me upstairs I am no longer near the 8th grade classrooms so it gives me a buffer so I can work on this goal. I think this is a good goal, it is nice for me to care about the students but I should not shield them from hardship because that does not prepare them for the real world. Okay, fine goal number one is set. Goal 1 is to show the children I care with a kind "Hello," "How are you," "How is your day going?" then I shall send them away promptly any time they try to enter my room.

           

   Now on to the next possibility. It is possible that they moved me from that room because students were leaving my classroom without permission on occasion. Sometimes I had a class of 30-34 students, I would be helping a group of students with something and 1 or 2 would slip away out of the door I was farthest from so I would have to call the office to get them rounded up. I really wanted to blame the students for this but I know that I play my own part in it. I am not stern enough, I give them too many chances to do the right thing before giving consequences, I trust too willingly, etc. In my new room the doors are both in the front of the classroom a mere 20ish feet apart and my desk and workstation are between them so this should no longer be a problem, however I felt I needed to set a personal goal to ensure that it does not. Goal 2 is to be stern, set consequences for every action and follow through with them even when you like the student or feel for them and want to go easy on them. Life is not going to go easy on these kids and neither should I, I am actually doing them a disservice rather than helping them out.

               Now that I have these goals in place I will add a third goal that is teaching centered. I am thinking goal number 3 is going to be to work on more inquiry based, student-centered activities but I am still working on that goal as I learn and research over the summer.

            

               Learning and growing is tough and often times it is painful to go through mentally, emotionally and even physically at times however without it you cannot move forward. I want to always move forward, to be the best teacher that I can be, to make the difference in lives that I know I can make. I may stumble and fall sometimes and I may even get things completely wrong but I know that I will get there, I will keep getting up, I will dust myself off and just like I want my students to do I will learn and grow.