Bring it On!

From My Side of the Desk: Bring it On!

As the Winter-That-Wasn’t slinks into the record books, and as anticipatory signs of Springtime tantalize appetites with daily avian caroling and crocuses stretching through the unfrozen earth, teachers ponder how they can eradicate the build-up of sluggishness from their students’ brains, a result of the onset of Slump Syndrome. This pervasive affliction leaves no student or staff member unscathed as it insidiously careens through school halls and classrooms. At this point in the year, between analyzing and revising lessons to meet the needs of their charges, the objectives of their Program of Studies, the expectations of principals, parents, and society and state and federal mandates, teachers’ stress meters hover around maximum overload levels. Will Johnny and Jane be able to cling to their eagerness to learn, although they will never show this motivation in fear of breaking the strictures of coolness, or will they resemble impacted wisdom teeth as they dig in their heels and challenge their instructors to, “Teach me something I don’t already know”?

I have never been one to cringe from a challenge. When I was still the Benevolent Monarch of the Classroom, I’d greet the Slump Syndrome parasites with my defiant cry to, “Bring it on!”  During this March Madness, no teens sated by one too many helpings of recalcitrance, no administrative staff with philosophies ranging from the Scarlett O’Hara, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” syndrome to Micromanaging Mania, no helicopter parents and no politicos who talked the talk but had never walked the walk of an overcrowded classroom would awaken those middle of the night demons poised to munch on my confidence.

My serenity, thirty years in the making, was the result of a Do/Don’t list that kept my classroom Drama Queen role alive, my students on their academic toes, and me a happy camper. Although this blog is dedicated to my teaching colleagues near and far, anyone who toils in the home, outside the home or both can ward off the dreaded Slump Syndrome by downing them with their daily vitamins. Here they are:

Do’s:

1. Believe in Me.  Too many of us start to doubt all of our knowledge, expertise and everything that we do so well when we’re trapped in the monologue of colleagues and acquaintances who love to boast about their skills and prowess in absolutely everything. Do NOT allow them to erode your confidence in yourself. Remembering the old adage, “Those that got it don’t have to flaunt it to any fool to dense to see it,” lowered my acid reflux levels during many a boastful soliloquy.

2. Trust My Instincts. Whether you are a twenty-two-year-old rookie with the dean’s signature on your diploma still damp, or a sixty-year-old veteran who can’t even remember whether you aced your college and/or training classes or slid through with a sigh of, “Phew. I’m glad that’s over,” you have enough education and life experience to know if any situation, be it academic, social or professional, feels wrong. If a lesson/report/project bombs, own up to it and fix it…right then... before you lose the attention of your students/colleagues/bosses/children. Believe me, if you don’t, pulling your students/staff/children/yourself back from the brink of ennui will take a long, long time and many bottles of Tylenol and Tums.  If a situation between you and a student/ child/parent/colleague/boss/principal raises a, “What’s this about?” flag, handle it or ask for help. Again, right then, before it can expand into a storm cloud that could darken many days to come.

3. Be Positive. Although I dropped Physics so fast the quantums were still spinning when I was accepted into college in September of my senior year in high school, even I know that negativity plus negativity equals even more negativity. Once, I saw a commercial on TV where an elderly woman said, “Every day I have a choice to be happy or sad.  I choose to be happy.” This made a huge impression on me. I try my best to follow it, even though some days it forms a continuous mantra in my head, attempting to convince me of its value as I slog through the murk generated by my own Type-A behavior along with the trials and tribulations of everyday tasks and tediousness. A newly vacuumed floor, free of the fur that only a 180 pound Newfoundland can generate is a joy to behold.

4. Have Fun. Teaching was a choice of my own free will. I was not dragged into this most honorable profession kicking and screaming and gnashing my teeth. Ever since my Aunt Catherine taught me to read when I was four-years-old I have been a bookaholic. My love affair with words has led me to develop my own curriculum creations, and to turn my fantasies into books populated by the characters of my imagination. Oh, the glee in creating the Evil One!. Oh yes, and I love to talk. Where else but a classroom could I share my adoration of the written word and not be told to be quiet? Where else could I rant about the abhorrent abuse of our language by people who love to say and write, “Everyone lost their books,” and starting sentence with it or there and a to be verb? Learning is and always will be fun and energizing. Whatever people do, they need to search for the fun in life.  If ever a day comes when I say, “I didn’t learn anything today,” I hope the retired teachers’ lounge in the sky is preparing my eternal cup of coffee (Just black, please).
 

Don’ts:

1. Let’s Play Games. I have a theory based on many years of living in academia and out in the world: a few people in every occupation, the Taggers, never mentally left high school. They love to play this game where they label each colleague/neighbor as a Brain, Jock, Nerd, Popular Person, or whatever trendyTag is floating through the movie, music and media-induced airways. They also love to run to anyone willing to listen with their colleagues’/neighbors’/bosses’ every faux pas while patting themselves on their backs for their In-the-Know expertise. IGNORE THEM! Even if it means being tagged by their cattiness. They will only enervate you emotionally and spiritually. Loads of good-hearted compassionate people make up this world who will happily take their place in your life. Embrace them. Besides, if you are living the Land of the Do’s, you won’t have time for the Taggers.

2. Just Say NO. Although this game can include the Taggers, I use it to identify those people who can be, if I let them, the banes of my existence. They are comprised of colleagues/bosses/children/acquaintances that don’t support each other in regards to pre-set rules or guidelines. They adhere to two sets of standards: One for themselves and another for everyone else. Other morale-busting people, such as the Never-ending Naysayers, the Constant Complainers and the Boastful Bores, can crop up in some role or another, too. Do NOT allow these people to infiltrate and infect the four points of the Do list.  

Remember that no one can hurt, irritate or frustrate you unless you allow them to bore under your skin. Buttress yourself from the soul-sucking actions of the Don’t list with those who talk the talk and walk the walk, with those who know that what they do has meaning: to themselves, their families and the world, and with those who believe that education is the light of the future and who always put kids, and not their personal agendas, first. Remember, like Sheera, Queen of the Jungle said, and I paraphrase, “I HAVE THE POWER (of the Do List).”

Until next week,

Connie
www.teachitwrite.com