A Teacher's First Year...

The First Year...

Do you remember walking through the front doors of your school on your first day as a teacher? Well, I sure do. A few teenagers were strolling the halls, but most hadn't arrived yet. Eager with anticipation, I hardly slept a wink. Getting to school long before the first bell rang was not a problem. The tile floors squeaked under my rubber soled shoes. A faint lemon smell rose from the floor. It was the scent of the janitor's floor cleaning chemicals. My thoughts drifted to cleanliness and then it occurred to me that this was the reason for my being there. I was about to embark on a mission to cleanse all of my future students of ignorance, of insecurity and unhappiness. My mission was to help them reject most of what they had probably been taught. I recall thinking to myself that I was not naive, I did not want to change the world. I simply wanted to change the world my students lived in.

Of course, the first day I held my students attention. I kept them all entertained and engaged for the better part of an hour for each class. But at the end of that day, I could smell the perspiration that seeped through my shirt. I felt like I was the only source of progressive, enlightened energy in the entire classroom, save for a handful of my brilliant students. I wouldn't admit it to myself, but I knew I could not keep this up for long. The inevitable roadblocks that I never could have foreseen, but certainly every veteran teacher would understand, weakened the power of my vision for a more enlightened world. There were issues with classroom management, students giving excuses for putting my class low on their priority list because they have lives that simply come before. My energy quickly dwindled as did the drive for realizing the goals I had envisioned only months before.

At the time, in my district, there had not been any established mentoring plan or objective meant for retaining teachers or establishing an environment that was conducive to learning as it is now. I recall I was floundering in a tempest of complicated lives, including my own, as I desperately tried to organize it all and produce some kind of environment that all could accept and thrive within. It was impossible.

It was not until a few months down the road when one of the veteran teachers, who will remain unnamed in this article, took me aside while we were having lunch in the teachers' lounge. I remember the look he had in his eyes. I couldn't recall ever seeing this man before as I had been running from my car to the classroom in the morning and back at night. But at this moment under the stench of cheap, burnt coffee, I saw strength and experience that I then knew was the answer to my problems. He told me he had been watching me closely over the last few weeks. My mouth dropped open as if asking why he had not come to me sooner. I could tell he knew exactly what I was thinking. Then he told me that he was sorry that he could not have helped me earlier, because most new teachers seem to be terribly thick headed when they first step into the classroom. He said us new teachers were much too liberal for our own good and simply not practical enough.

I frowned noticeably. He told me not to take offense, but his time is precious. I could certainly understand this. Then he said that he wanted to know for sure that I was "broken" and ready for the help that he could give. After the red of my irritation left my cheeks, he proceeded to talk with me about all the issues he's had over the years and how all have been resolved, for the most part.

We met every week for a couple hours. He mostly told stories and anecdotes, but they all seemed to have a moral to the story, something that I could use the next day in my classroom. He showed me the gray in issues I was certain were black and white. I began relaxing with regard to the motives for social change I had been clinging so tightly to when I had first begun to teach. It was not that I had given up on the issues, it was more that I had given myself a brake. I began realizing the problems that lie within our public schools and society at large are extremely complicated. Our problems are not solved at the hands of a frantic youth. They are solved by the hands of many sharing their knowledge and teaming up to create the best environment that is ripe for change.

It has been eight years since I first walked through those doors and I'm more excited than ever about the progress I've made. Of course the product of my progress is not in the form that I had thought it might be when I first decided to become a teacher, it is something much more meaningful. I see the progress in my efforts when I see groups of staff now organizing and readying themselves for the incoming teachers as an established mentoring program. My heart bursts with joy when I see the community supporting an increase in compensation for higher education for teachers.

Those first few weeks were terribly hard. My goals were completely rearranged. My youthful optimism had a tinge of manic idiocy to it. I look back and see how much more wise I am today. But what has not changed is something I knew in my heart to be true from the moment I decided to become a teacher. I have and will always love teaching.


Erin Pierce