I can’t be the teacher I needed when I was younger. It’s a painful place to be. More painful is my inability to even be myself without facing pushback from students, parents, and administrators in subtle and not so subtle ways. This isn’t meant as an admission that my moral character or intellectual ability as an educator is in question (as far as I know), merely that my teaching persona does not seem to conform to the tested and true archetypes of either “warm mother,” “fun uncle,” or “sarcastic older sibling.” There is seemingly no place for female intellectuals who do not prioritize mothering (their students) over teaching mastery of the material they have been hired to convey. It is not enough to rely on what I find inherently interesting and endlessly fascinating about my subject to “sell it” to my students, I must enamour myself to them as a friend first, and enable their personal growth and development foremost.
This is not to say I do not recognize the importance of building relationships with students. As a reformed introverted bookworm, social skills have never been a strength, but I still make daily efforts to cheerily greet all of my students by name at my classroom door each morning as they arrive for attendance. I plan lessons that incorporate the cultures and interests and abilities of my classes. I volunteer to chaperone school dances and teach fitness classes on activity days. I have shared items of my own winter clothing and lunches with students who have arrived without during recesses. And I lose sleep in the middle of countless nights worrying about those among my kids who are in physical, mental, or academic anguish for known or unknown reasons.
I have compromised on a lot of my deepest educational beliefs and values to try to meet the current needs and expectations of today’s students. I provide pencils and paper constantly to kids who will do nothing in class if I do not do so. We practice the same unchanged questions for days before each quiz (also unchanged) to give kids a chance at succeeding without studying at home. I plough through my grade book and assign makeup work well before grading deadlines so kids can improve their marks to passing, and make a lot of my assignments group efforts with choice to try to improve engagement. The work is slow and gruelling, as the school focus is getting every kid to a passing grade.
And yet, my reputation remains solidly in the realm of “not caring about my students” among wide swaths of the public I interact with.
The more I am told that I need to start “being myself,” the more bitter I get that everyone around me thinks I am either “trying to be someone I’m not” or “concealing some scintillating and more likeable” version of myself for my own protection. If anything, this constant feedback reinforces the notion that I need to be even less like my natural self than I already am.
Who am I really? A geek and nerd who loved school and science so much I continued my education as long as one could – until I had earned a Ph.d. (and several post-docs) in Plant Genomics. A polyglot who got to travel the world as a result of my academic abilities and learn five languages. A fitness fanatic who became a kickboxing and yoga instructor in my spare time. A tabletop gaming aficionado who helped create educational simulations to train staff at the World Bank and UN refugee agency, among others. An awkward Auntie who deeply loves my large swath of nieces an nephews ranging from toddlers to university ages. A sci-fi and fantasy fan who can quote from Star Trek as easily as Star Wars. An outdoorswoman who has hiked the Swedish Mountains and scuba dived in the Mediterranean. A poet with published books for sale on Amazon. All of which sounds like an attempt to claim status, but which I’m sharing to try to convey the fact that I am not a one-dimensional being who needs to do more to qualify as having “an authentic self” to share. A hometown “success story” who wanted to pay it forward so some other kids like me, with big brains and little means, could get the same opportunities.
Yet, the longer I linger in education, the more I realize that, regardless of the lip service paid to educating the next generation to reach their highest academic potential, what is truly valued is the childcare and child-rearing function of (female) educators. Self-esteem, not self-actualization, is the goal. Which isn’t to say this might not be a worthy goal valuable by the fact many can achieve it, but it’s not why I became an educator, and we need to be more explicit about this to recruited teachers and administrators pushing more standardized testing achievement.
We need to be honest about the fact that many educators belittle advanced educational experiences (be it the gifted programs or those with doctorates), choose or are forced to teach to the lowest common denominator, are more prized for their popularity than their educational practices (outside of social-emotional learnings), and are replaceable by any adult substitute who can provide childcare (regardless of training) in lieu of other service.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but perhaps the suicide pill I need to choke down.
