Teacher lore, 2nd draft

by Eridania Rodriguez

“Teachers are students”

          Sometimes you learn from your students more than what you’re aware, you also learn how to forecast their result at the end of the school year and try to find all means possible to help them succeed in the school and besides that in all their daily life issues. I’d learned from my students, especially from Carlos, to be more empathetic.

I’ve learned that to be successful during the teaching and learning process, all the actors in the educational community should support the goal and depending on that, the result will be met.

During the first day of class in 7th graders classroom, the Physical Education teacher just said, “Good afternoon, do you want to participate in the activity we have in the yard today? without asking me permission to announce that in my class, and of course, due to the circumstances and students' feelings at the moment they agreed in going out (the last two periods of classes that day), but I interrupted the P.E. teacher and reflected with the students about my lesson planning, I explained to them that that was the first day of class for me and the only day I had to evaluate them for the first time in that school year and besides that the next week was the due date to hand in all groups’ evaluation results, and that I haven’t done it because the school activities haven’t given me the chance to do it before that due date.

 The P.E. teacher understood and left the classroom.  Even though I reflected with the students about this  the students didn’t; they got very mad at me instead, but I couldn’t let them go out anyway, because I thought that was fair for all of us. I learned that next time I have a similar situation I’ll use my plan B to evaluate them and help them reflect on the importance of learning foreign languages. What I didn’t know was that since that day I became the enemy for that group! And that didn’t help during the whole school year.

There was extensive interaction with all those 7th graders during the whole school year, the principal, the psychologist and other teachers; trying to give them (students who needed it) reinforcement workshops in content areas, having meetings with their parents (most of them never showed up, like Carlos’s). At the end five students out 31 had to repeat the level.

Several months later I found Carlos very angry, he said that he wanted to kill the homeroom teacher because she only gave 59% of the assistance. I sat across from him and recollected the story; I can’t decipher my emotions regarding it because at last, he understood the importance of being present and active with all the teachers. So, we reflected on what’s really important in life, trying to be a team next year can help him succeed, but at least, for the first time, he showed interest, he paid attention to my words!

I learned that even though teenagers and parents show that they don’t care and don’t make any effort to overcome their challenges, that’s when all the teachers and school management team, administrators, parents should not give up and leave them alone. We all, as a team, should sit together and formulate a better plan for Carlos and his next school year’s challenge, and  for all those students that are in a similar situation; all teachers must provide support to help them meet their needs even though it’s not a piece of cake, but it’s also our success as teachers.