Role Model?
I had this terrifying moment today of, "I don't want to be a role model." It's such a concerning term. To think that someone will look at you as an ideal of... something. In this case, I have issues with being an ideal adult.I don't have my life anywhere close to being together. I think that we forget that adults are just making it up as they go along. I know I am. I recently received my horizontal ID in the mail and I still don't feel adultish. I'm having problems adulting.
So how am I supposed to walk into a classroom and be like, "Hello children I am an adult follow my adulting examples!"Seriously?
I question my decisions about my lunch, and you want me to be a role model? What?
The question of the year is this: How do I pretend I am a proper adult?
Answer: You don't.
Pretending to be all knowing is one of the biggest mistakes a teacher can make. Showing humanity is one of the main conclusions I've come to about connection and relationship.
Whenever I tell people I'm going to be a teacher, I get one of two responses. Oh! I love English. Or Oh, I hated my English teacher. It's amazing the perceptions that people carry with them far after high school is over. I always ask why they hated or loved a certain teacher, and it didn't come from pretending to be all knowing with this fancy degree.
The teachers that were the most loved were those who cared. They were the teachers who enjoyed teaching their subject, even when they knew the students didn't like it so much. They were the ones who had strange quirks. Who drank coffee and admitted mornings weren't meant for them. They were the teachers who admitted their faults but tried to get beyond them. They were the teachers who made class interesting, who weren't jerks, who went to football games, who nerded out, who didn't hate on the trouble makers, who tried to teach them something by talking to them, not at them.
All of these things are easier said than done. I realize that not all of my students will leave my class liking me. But I do know that they're never going to learn if I keep pretending that I'm Miss perfect.
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