It took just one semester for the students to tear me down

‘If this ain’t your cuppa tea, we don’t want you teaching here.”

That was broadcast advice from a Richland 1 administrator at a district-wide teachers rally. Even then, after my first week or so of teaching Columbia High School Spanish, my tea was going down harder than liquor.

Fast forward just a few months to November 2010: Mentally broken down, crying on the weekends in anticipation of Monday morning, I made plans to quit my job and return to the corporate world.

What had happened? I liked teaching people as a BlueCross corporate trainer and speaker. So I had earned a master’s degree in teaching English as a foreign language in 2008. When our family’s plans to move to China to teach English went on hold, the S.C. PACE program offered me a plan B to fulfill my call to language education.

But. Teenagers. Classroom management. Cultural backgrounds different than my own. Multitasking. First-year teaching. Shenanigans! These ingredients poisoned my tea.

How could I teach when half of my students were talking to each other, ignoring me? Others distracting my attention, while ringleaders hid my flashcards or wrote the F word on the whiteboard behind my back? Or even standing up on the desks and rapping out loud? One girl, who I learned was part of a gang, told me and the class my first week, “We’re gonna break you.“

Maybe you’re thinking: Well, you must have just been a real meanie to them to deserve that kind of retaliation. Or, you’re just a pushover. I wasn’t a pushover, but I may have presented as “too nice.“ Before the semester began, I was shocked at a three-day teacher training, when seasoned teachers helped with a mock first-day classroom role-play. Their kind, professional tenor turned to rude, obnoxious and untamable as they pretended to be the students I would live with for the next semester. Surely, they’re just overacting. Not so.

One fellow teacher warned me, “Don’t smile for the first week.” This was a compassionate guy. Was he kidding? No, I told him and all the others: “I just can’t do that. That’s not me.” (Not my tea.)

Now, there were teachers who had that perfect chemistry of kindness, counter-sassiness and skill in classroom management to pull it off. These teachers and the administration tried to help me stomach the tea. Good advice, a consoling pat on the back when I cried my eyes out, and the principal even came in to co-teach a class with me twice.

Ultimately, I left with a new appreciation for teachers and the challenges of teaching, especially to high school students. I even decided not to pursue classroom teaching for adult learners, at least for now. I just found myself not to be that extroverted.

Happily, for the past seven years, I have thrived as an instructional designer of online courses and videos, fulfilling my call to education. Not always violated by the constant chaos that tore me down in such a short time, but restored and contributing in a tranquil, solitary way, I reflect on at all, as I sip on a warm cup of tea.

This story was originally published May 4, 2018 at 9:58 AM with the headline "It took just one semester for the students to tear me down."