The Funny Side of the Crying Game

I've had an amazing response from colleagues, mentors and friends to the last post about my shameful crying episode. Most surprising was to discover just how common these feelings are for new teachers - and just how many of my peers are out there having their own cry :-) A good friend told me they've even been crying in the car on the way home, and a mentor who I hold in the highest esteem told me they nearly resigned in their first term because they thought they were a terrible teacher.  It seems it comes with the territory - and you can sort of see the funny side if you imagine all those secret crying corners. So, if you're reading this because you've had a cry in the classroom (hopefully not in front of the students!) - take heart - it's part of the process! And don't be afraid to share the story with trusted mentors and peers. Chances are they've been having a secret cry too.

So what advice did I receive? Here's a summary and some further thoughts:

A certain level of control is necessary before you can do the exciting stuff

This response from friend and fellow new teacher Beth Bevan echoed the experience of many of my peers:

One thing I have learnt though is that you need to build the strong relationship with a challenging class before you can break out the really exciting stuff. If you don't have that certain level of "control" you won't be able to reign them back in when it's time to discuss the learning, or time to work quietly on a task. It doesn't mean you need to be the scary disciplinarian, you just have your find your way of telling the kids they're off track and bringing them back to focus. And it certainly doesn't mean your wonderful teaching strategies go out the window, it might mean you introduce things slowly, remembering that they need to get used to you and your style being a different way of learning too and this will take them out of their comfort zone. By the end of the year, your most challenging class could well be your favourite.

See students as individuals - not 'that class'

Some very helpful and practical advice I was given was to stop thinking about my challenging class as "that class" and instead view it as composed of unique individuals - each of them with their own story, their own personality, needs and responses. When you do that, it becomes so much easier to forgive their individual transgressions - you're not facing a whole class, with a mob personality that's attacking you (even if it feels that way sometimes!).

Who do you think you are?

In the nicest possible way: Don't kid yourself that you've got something special that dedicated teachers who came before you haven't tried. It makes good movies, but it ain't true. Accept your limitations and the reality of the current context.  I'm reminded of a Buddhist teaching called "To Care and Not to Care" - or to use the lingo, getting the right balance between Compassion and Equanimity. We need to have compassion with our students, but also not be so caught up in emotion we can no longer help. Some things can't be changed just by us wanting them to change - we need equanimity to accept things as they are, while still keeping our heart open so that when and if students are ready for us, we are still there for them.

"I hate you" - but it's not personal

In her wonderful book "Relating to Adolescents: Educators in a Teenage World", Susan Porter repeatedly warns teachers not to take students' admiration and interest seriously: "they don't care about you". Teenagers are interested in themselves - and their interest in you is only based in how it relates to them. I'm coming to realise this caution also applies when students say they dislike you, or are rude to you - it's the same: "they don't really care about you" - the emotion isn't that personal - you the teacher just don't figure that much in their personal lives. So next period, they could be all different again.

And how is this class going now? I have changed my teaching strategies to use more 'working quietly' activities (book work, worksheets) and once the class is settled, I walk around the class to students and teach individually or in pairs.  We're not at the stage yet (me included) that we can have sustained whole class discussion about mathematics. I also offer more differentiation options, allowing students to choose the level of difficulty they want to start at. The wonderful thing is now that the shouting (theirs) and the crying (mine) has stopped, I'm really taking pleasure in the variety and humour of the class.

The Crying Game

Sometimes the adventure gets a little rough (with apologies to MGM).

I wrote this piece a month ago as a private reflection - at the time I was hesitant to share it more widely because it is a little emotional and I didn't want to take the chance my students would see it while I was feeling this way. However the response from the people I showed it to at the time suggests it might be helpful to other new teachers - even if just to realise how normal this sort of reaction is. And I think it's important for balance to show some of the low points as well as the high points of first term of teaching.

One week in March 2011

A shocker of a week - an absolute shocker of a week - the low point: finding myself crying uncontrollably - fortunately alone in my classroom at recess with the door shut. It was the end of a dreadful period with my "challenging class" - their rejection of my attempts to engage with them and the aggressive rudeness of some students finally got to me. I was angry and upset - upset with them, and then upset with myself that I was so upset - what sort of crappy teacher was I? Is this what I gave up a career in IT for? What I studied so hard for two years without pay for? I'm kind of laughing now - at the irrationality and intensity of it ... but it really did feel that way. I just bawled and bawled like a baby for a five minutes. I couldn't go into the faculty staff room - I didn't want anyone to see how low I had gone - or see my red eyes.

The day before, I had another dent in my confidence when the school executive decided not to support an initiative I thought I had their support for. Looking back I can see I didn't take the smart approach of getting genuinely solid support for the idea before it went to the meeting - I had forgotten my skills from the corporate world how to play that game. The combined effect of what felt like a rejection from both the school and the students with weeks' of sleep deprivation meant that by Wednesday night I really was feeling it was "Game Over" for me.

Fortunately I've got some great support in my faculty. After I confessed to my pathetic crying session to two colleagues, they shared their own stories of when they had their "crying time" and gave me support and many practical ideas how to deal with the challenges. As one put it to me : "All teachers go through this stage - and then you can go one of several ways: some teachers face it and work out how to deal with it and go on to be good teachers, others leave the profession, and the worst option, some never deal with it, but stay in the profession". I felt very sorry for myself - but decided I wanted to be in the first category of teachers: work it out.

Two days later I faced the test again: and a tougher test - a double period with the challenging class. Different teaching strategies, I stayed very calm, and ... amazingly .... the students (mostly) worked and (some) learned new material. Two students actually apologised to me for the previous period (they must have seen the start of my breakdown!), and the student who had been the most aggressive was polite and civil to me (one of my colleagues said that was their way of apologising). It went to so well, I actually let the students continue doing maths exercises rather than bring out some games I had planned - save that one for another day! Maybe we can start from this base, and slowly introduce some of those more engaging and deeper learning activities I perhaps foolishly tried on Day One. So the week ended on a high.

So why the uncontrollable flood of tears? Apart from just fear of failure, and the ego hit of being rejected, I really have been resisting the pressure to conform and follow more traditional approaches to the "teacher-student-role" - I didn't want to be the adult who dominates the classroom, who uses well-tried techniques to achieve command and control - techniques that I believe often create barriers and inhibit learning. In a way, those tears were for the loss of that of idealism, tears that I might have been terribly mistaken - and that to survive I would have to become what I don't want to be. What I've learnt though is it's not quite that black-and-white: students and the system itself are not always as open and welcoming to your idealism (naiveté?) as you may hope. So you do have to toughen up - this isn't a game for the weak. Now the challenge is to learn how to be strong and resilient, and carefully use those command-and-control techniques, and "play the system"- without losing the idealism, hope and commitment that are the reasons I want to be a teacher.

It's Saturday morning now - a great night's sleep - and the comfort of knowing I survived my first really challenging week. I'm so grateful for the support and friendship of colleagues. And also a little embarrassed to think of my reaction given I only have one class out of five that is challenging - I can only imagine what it's like for teachers who have maybe four out of five challenging classes - period after period, every day of the week.

I don't think I'll be crying again.

One month later: Looking back on this, part of me is chuckling at how sensitive I was at the time - but another part of me sees the importance of going through the experience.  I will be sharing some of the teacher responses to this story in the next post.