The Teacher I am HATES the Teacher I used to Be

     Cruel detentions, tucked in shirts, hours of homework. These are  some of the policies that the old me used to  enforce that the new me would never allow.  

     What is a cruel detention?  If you ask any of the kids that I taught in the first ten years of my career, I'm sure everyone of them will know.  If they broke any of the class rules three times in one day, they would earn a one hour detention after school.  During this detention, they would have to sit with both hands on top of the desk and not move their hands or feet.  Just typing that alone made me cringe.  I'm not saying I did it to be cruel.  I didn't!  I did what I thought was right at the time.    I wasn't a monster though.  With kids staying an hour after school, there was no crossing guard left to help them cross the intersection outside our school.  I would walk them across the intersection and many times, I would even walk them most of the way home.  See, I wasn't all bad.  However, I could have been better.  I could have found a better way to inspire kids to behave in school.  Now I know that when you create great lessons and make things in your classroom fun, kids don't misbehave nearly as much.  A huge part of classroom management is making learning fun and keeping kids engaged. That of course doesn't eliminate every behavior problem but it takes care of most. 

     We were a uniform school and I always required the boys in my class to tuck their shirts in.  In some way, I guess I was trying to force them to be disciplined and look nice.  Meanwhile, I was walking around with my shirt hanging down to my knees.  For some reason, the word hypocrite comes to mind.  It made sense to me at the time.  It doesn't make much sense to me today.  
      Today, I spend more time focusing on preparing my students for 6th grade.  I set my sights on much different goals.  For one, I want them to learn to love learning.  I want to make them want to come to school.  Another goal is to make them self driven learners.  That's not an easy thing to do, but it's worth a try.  I work so hard to make them understand that the only person worth comparing themselves to is themselves.  I want them to start from right where they are and go forward and improve and see the results of their effort.  That sure has nothing to do with whether a shirt is tucked in or not. 

     Kids love homework don't they?  I'm sure my students did.  They got so much of it, they may have learned to love it.  I was big on teaching kids how to outline text.  Why?  I don't know.  I still think that knowing how to outline is a great skill.  The worst part is that I would often assign this as homework.  Outlining takes time and we know all kids are different.  Some may have been done in thirty minutes, but others may have taken three hours.    Today, I don't even believe in giving homework.  The only time a kid will have homework in my class now is if they waste time in class and don't finish something.  That is their choice, not mine.  Kids have so many after school activities they might be involved in these days.  It might be a sport, cheer leading, karate, music or some other activity.  I want them to have time for these things because they are just as important as anything they can learn at school and more important than anything I could make them do at home.    I want them to go home and work on their fast ball,  practice their jump shot, learn to play the piano or just go home and do something different than school work.  Unless....... you wasted my time in class.  Then you can go home and do homework all night!   

     The funny thing is that my old students probably have no bad thoughts about the detentions, the tucked in shirts or the homework.  They may even look back on those times as great times.  Many of them are friends with me to this day and they still say their year with me, was their best year ever.  I always think how much I wish they could be in my class now or how much I wish I knew then what I know now.  Wouldn't life be grand if it were that way. 

     I didn't write this to step on any toes.  I've been very transparent here and I've been critical of myself.  I'm not judging anyone else or how any other teacher does things.  I'm not telling anyone to give or not give homework.  I'm simply judging how I did things and how I've continued to evolve over my career.  More importantly, I'm showing that I'm always reflecting about what I do as a teacher, why I do it, and if it benefits my students.  We should all be trying to improve continuously.  Learning to be a better teacher has never been easier or cheaper.  The thing that has helped me grow the most is Twitter.  So many wonderful educators share the best ideas they have to offer, freely.  If you haven't tried Twitter, I think you should. Let me end with this parting thought, "Ten years from now, I hope the teacher I am then, HATES the teacher I am today."