Faking It Until I Make It

I am so not prepared for tomorrow’s first lesson. I haven’t finished the reading yet, still a chapter left to go. It is late and I am tired, but I promised myself that I would post a blog every Sunday, regardless of the circumstances. I promised myself I would be professional. Which means, I also promised myself I would be prepared for every class. Not only for myself, but for my students as well. I plan on leading by example, just as I try to in parenting our two small children.

So here I go, writing my blog and afterwards I will read, no matter how tired I am or how late it gets. I need to be prepared to discuss this chapter tomorrow. My students are dependent on me.

Now I know reality is that the majority of my students probably don’t care if I am prepared or not, they are teenagers after all. If I’m not prepared that means, there won’t be as much pressure on them to perform at their best. But I also know that for those few who do want to do well in my class, they need a teacher who is prepared.

Which brings me to my first week as a teacher with real live teenage students. I thought that I would be nervous and possibly not speak loud enough for them. I thought they might eat me alive. The night before my first day, I had visions of the first words out of my mouth being, “Aloha! Welcome to Roy’s,” a phrase I have said thousands of times over the last 10 years.

But no. That’s not what happened at all. I surprised myself at how comfortable and confident I was that first class on my first day. I felt like I had been teaching all my life, when I started speaking to them, almost as if I had transformed into a real life teacher, even though I really was faking it. 

Maybe it was all the preparation I had put into my week. I had planned out nearly every minute and had filled the time with plenty of reading, writing and discussion. And before I knew it, my day was over. It was genuinely a success. I do admit I was mentally exhausted by the end of the day, but it was so worth it. Who knew I had this in me? I certainly didn’t. 

Not that everything went perfect, because it didn’t. I am human teaching other humans. There was an incident that makes me laugh, remembering how I was as a teenager. 

The students have the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school by attending the local community college. Those students who are involved in that program are allowed to leave for lunch five minutes early. I didn’t have a roster letting me know who was part of the program and who was not. So my solution was to tell all the students they may leave five minutes early if they have to. I reminded them to be honest. More than half my class left early.

Then I got a phone call from the office requesting me to send a particular student to the office. When I told the secretary that the student had left for the college program, she informed me that the student didn’t have that program in the afternoon and I needed to write her up. 

Immediately I emailed my mentor asking for a roster of who is allowed to leave and what I should do about so many of the students leaving. She responded by saying she would talk to me after school about it. 

When my mentor came into my room after school, she told me not to worry about it. The principal would be coming into my class, just before lunchtime and giving everyone who left lunch detention. All I could do was laugh. Teenagers are so dumb, but they think they’re so smart, it’s hilarious.

On top of the lunch detention, I decided they need to also face the consequences that I have set. I want to let all these kids know, “Don’t F—k with me.” So not only do they get detention, they also get additional homework, writing about what it means to be honest and why it is important to be honest. I think I got this teaching thing. Or at least it seems in my first week of tenure.

As for tomorrow, I need to do the reading so that I am prepared yet again, for a second week as a high school English teacher, even if I do have to stay up past my bedtime. Chapter 4 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X here I come.

By the way tomorrow is going to be a great day. Captain Awesome goes back to school as a first grader, Lieutenant Amazing begins his last year of preschool and my husband has his first day back teaching high schoolers Geometry and Algebra. School is officially beginning.