A Teacher’s socio-emotional journey

Teaching can be a soul wrenching existence. Not the most positive way to start a blog post, but this 2021-2022 school year has been like a school yard see-saw. On one side sits the plethora of blissful moments and on the other, the dark abyss of negative interactions. The negative parent and student interactions seem to dominate the teachers mind and there are little support tools other than trying to mitigate the emotional pain. Best intentions, intensive lesson planning, and trying to manage a class containing 35-38 students behaviors for a 55-minute time period is exhausting. Add the distractions of students arriving tardy, bathroom requests, technology malfunctions, incessant talking, excessive cell phone use, apathy, gaps in learning due to the pandemic, administration or psychologists removing students from class, students requesting to see the nurse, students overwhelmed by other classes and working on alternate assignments, answering student questions, providing scaffolded support for the varied student learners, managing student outbursts when asked to comply with basic instructions, lack of participation, students not listening the first time to instructions, students who were not present in class and require in depth explanations of prior tasks/assignments, evaluations, new teacher induction responsibilities, administration walking in the classroom to observe or discuss past-present-future challenges, emergencies such as fire alarms and active shooter drills, rally and foggy day schedules, being asked to substitute during prep times, and urgent emails have resulted in: sleepless nights, anxiety, depression, sadness, self-doubt, racing mind, and a lack of understanding on how to deal with the deep emotional pain projected by the students onto me (the teacher). The fundamental preparation connected to professional development within the first two and a half years has provided support for lesson planning, scaffolding, curriculum differentiation for the differing learners, communicating learning outcomes and expectations, and student performance indicators. Classroom management and understanding positive and negative student behaviors have been placed far down the list of priorities, yet this is what causes the most strife and challenges for new teachers. One negative student and/or parent interaction has the power to shatter the fragile glass jar containing the teachers psyche and inner confidence. Caring for the well-being of others places a teacher in the precarious position of choosing to feel the pain and learn healthy coping mechanisms or shut down and build a thick wall to protect against hurtful words and actions. In the short time I have been in the educational field, building the wall or at minimum emotionally pulling back far enough where engagement with the students is superficial seems to be the defacto response, whereby, limiting the mental anguish inflicted by certain students and parents. When I speak with other teachers, it feels like I am complaining or venting, and they express similar sentiments. The result is a culture of inaction, isolation, and training scars.  

            After careful consideration, one solution to this challenge would be to have new teachers paired with a veteran teacher the first three years of in-class instruction. The expectations of parents and administration coupled with the empowerment of students to speak out when they feel the slightest bit of push back or accountability leads to untenable situations with no clear outcome or viable solution to appease all parties. Administration may argue that mentor teachers are assigned to new teachers during the first two years, but this is clearly not enough socio-emotional support for our current teaching environment. Mentor teachers are themselves full-time teachers with their own set of responsibilities and issues. 

Placing a veteran teacher in the classroom would allow modeling to occur and allow the novice teacher an opportunity to understand how to set healthy boundaries, expectations, and guidelines for the benefit of all the students in the classroom. Furthermore, assessing students work output is a time-consuming endeavor which leaves minimal amounts of time for pursuing external growth opportunities. Imagine assigning students three writing related tasks during a typical week. In my experience, most students struggle to engage with assignments if there is no incentive; therefore, grading becomes an integral part of a new teachers ability to hold students accountable. With this in mind, basic mathematics (remember I’m an English teacher) shows that five English classes containing on average 35 students means each assigned task has a total of 175 individual submissions. The reality of public education is only about 65% to 75% of students turn in their work on time, but at that rate it still means there are 113 submissions to grade. During a five-day week, three assigned tasks means an English teacher is evaluating approximately 341 submissions. There is not enough time in the day to grade these assignments which leaves Saturday and Sunday to grade current assignments, late/missing work, and lesson plan. Where is the time to mentally recover?

A co-teacher would alleviate the challenges grading presents, facilitate healthy assessment strategies, open avenues of communication because of shared experiences, allow more time for investigating and researching new teaching strategies, expand student engagement through increased teacher interaction, scaffold and differentiate needed support frameworks, provide students with varied instructional tactics, and relieve the pressure inherent with lesson planning for a diverse array of learners (English Language Learners, SPED, 504/IEP plans, standard learner, GATE, etc.). In short, co-teaching is a phenomenal resource and should be considered or prioritized when hiring core instructional teachers who will be tasked with managing 30 or more students.