Teachers

I am a teacher.  I don't always get other teachers.  I often wonder why people choose this profession because I have met a few through the years that should not have.  Going way back to my first experience as a teacher; I was teaching in a special education program for middle school students, but it was housed in a separate wing in an elementary school.  I remember having to go to the school office and on my way back to "our wing" I passed a classroom and heard the teacher yelling, I mean really yelling.  I stopped and looked at the door and saw "2nd grade"!  I was young, I was idealistic and I was mad.  I did not understand it then, and I don't understand it now.  The first requirement to being a teacher should be: like kids and know what kids you like, young kids?  Teach elementary school. Pre-pubescent? (is that a word?), teach middle school and God love ya.  Teenagers, and notice I said "teenagers" and not "adults" AND there is a HUGE difference between a fourteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old, so if you are going to teach high school you better know that, appreciate that, and be able to teach "to all that!"  Here is a twist on how America does school:  In elementary school, enjoy these young minds and hearts, have fun, but teach content.  Be tough on them, not mean, be firm and expect a lot, no excuses!  Stop feeling sorry for your babies and expect them to step up to the plate.  Now, in middle school, we have kids with the basic skills, and the basic study habits necessary to learn the middle school curriculum because they weren't coddled but neither were they ever belittled.  They had teachers who wanted to instruct and watch them grow, not protect and enable.  So for the next three years while it is important to teach your subject area, it is also important to teach social skills, manners, friendship skills, more study strategies, (READING, not decoding, but how to meet text), and to connect in a big way with every child, yes they are still children, that you pass each day, and to realize that this period of time is a make it or break it time for many of  the kids you see everyday.  And you can't blame them for the baggage they carry, they didn't pack their bags.  Now we are in high school and the kids feel pretty good about themselves because their teachers in middle school understood that they needed to help them learn the curriculum, but they also needed to "parent" a bit because that's when parents kind of lose it.  Now we have kids who learned the basics in elementary school, were able to continue to grow academically in middle school and were also given the support needed to build the self-esteem necessary to survive high school.  Again, they weren't coddled or enabled, but they were understood and helped, (there is a difference and good teachers know it).  So you think all you have to do as a teacher is give them the information you so love and want them to know?  Ha!  Think again.  You have the toughest job of all, you have to help them become adults, because as they enter high school they are really still children, and in four years they will be expected to "become".  They will not become if all you do is teach Math, or English, or Social Studies, of Science, or Art, or Auto, or Whatever.  So be prepared to teach, to parent, to befriend, to care in such a way that you help them learn what they need to know, but you also listen.  Listening is probably the skill high school teachers need most, and being able to listen when no one is talking.  And all you wanted to do was teach, right?  Well, what is teaching?  I think it is helping someone to learn, and there is a lot to learn in life. 
Rosemary