My Second Year as a Private School Teacher

About this time last year, I talked about what my first year as a private school teacher was like, and now, since we've fast forwarded a whole 'nother year, I thought it'd be interesting to reflect once again.

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I'm not sure how much I experienced it last year, but something I've noticed at least more this year was something I wasn't expecting in my teaching career or at least never thought of.

Up until 2023, I'd only taught adult students where the dynamic can really just be student - prof - content. It's rather clinical at times, especially when the classes are in huge numbers. But with younger students, the dynamic changes drastically.

A gift some a student

I didn't realize how attached some students can be to you as their teacher and you to them. I have some students who tell me every time how much they dislike having a sub, who playfully get upset with me every time I'm away, who request to be with me, etc.

Just this week I had a student tell me he'll be off for the summer, but when he's back in September he wants me to be his teacher. He also told me not to forget him, which broke my heart to hear since I don't think I could ever forget any of my students. I never want to have my own kids, so my students are the closest I'll ever get to that.

Having students be this attached to me is a new experience for sure. I see myself as a rather strict and stern teacher most times. Relationship building through play learning, I believe, has never been my strong point. I am very much interested in the content I teach and enjoy the act of teaching. I got into teaching because of the act of teaching, not because of the students, so I didn't give that aspect of the job too much though prior to this.

I've always seen myself as an adult teacher because I think the aspect of my job that I don't enjoy the most is the parenting side of things. I don't enjoy policing behaviours, having to repeat myself over and over, telling students to be kind to one another and me, I'm terrible with crying meltdowns (I never know how to hand them), etc. Parenting isn't something I've ever had to do with my university student and if they ever have crying meltdowns, I feel, I can relate to them better than a grade 1 student having a crying meltdown. In that way, I feel more prepared and more comfortable as an educator.

But, prior to this job, I don't think I ever thought about the positive bits of the parenting side of things. I know that as their teacher, my role is to help give them the skills they needs to succeed academically in the future, but part of that is also building up their confidence in their own abilities to face challenging things - academically of course, but nonetheless, a transferable skill. Helping my students see that they are capable of so much more than previously thought is by far one of my favourite parts of my job. I can see how this is where the attachment might start forming for some of my students. Part of me also wonders though, if it's just because I'm a constant in their lives, so they get used to me and want to avoid changes if possible, but I think that's being a bit clinical and cynical.

Anyway, in the same vain as how some students are attached to me, I have students I'm also attached to. I have students who I genuinely look forward to teaching. I not only enjoy teaching them the content they're learning, but also just enjoy having them in my class. With some of them I have genuinely thought "if I had a kid and they turned out to be like this student, I'd be happy".

My students who are my most challenging behavioural students, who sometimes I wish I wasn't teaching or had more good days than bad, they definitely made last year more challenging for me. There were times when I questioned if I had it in me to teach younger students. But even with them, I don't like when someone else teaches them. I feel protective over them and feel as though I teach and understand them best. I don't think I ever thought I could be attached in a similar way as a parent, since I never saw myself as one.

This attachment they feel and I feel wasn't something I was expecting. As I said, I got into teaching for the teaching, but I'm finding now, that the students are becoming a bigger part of the career I've chosen. I feel really blessed with all the students I have right now. They've really made me love my job even more than I already did. I'm curious to see how that dynamic changes the closer I get to my long term career goal of becoming a professor.

To continue with the topic of students and to expand on what I said earlier, I definitely still feel as though I am best suited as an adult teacher, than a teacher of young ones. I do think I'm good at what I do right now, but I find that teachers who really excel in elementary and middle school teaching have this very open, fun, silly, kind of personality that I can't seem to foster in myself.

I can't, as my boss would say, "let me hair down", in the same way as they do. I can be fun and lighthearted with my students and often am, I am gentle and understanding with my littles of course, but I just can't seem to do that learn through play bit. I definitely don't play pretend well.

That's said though, I realized now that having this kind of energy is important for not just elementary and middle school teaching, but also for adult teaching, especially with second language learners. In term of communication, especially in the first year classes, second language learners are like kiddos. They are just learning the building blocks of how to communicate in this other language, which challenges so many aspects of the self and that can hard to cope with.

All students, second language or not, have, for lack of a better word, big emotions, and thoughts that they often want to share, but can struggle to find ways to express them. Creating an environment that isn't always so serious, but rather, can also be fun and lighthearted, creates a sense of comfortability and community where being vulnerable in learning doesn't feel so scary.

I think back to the teaching observations that I did in my TESOL Practicum and am reminded one of the teacher that often made his students laugh during the lessons and, whenever there was a break, would go to his office and come back with chocolates for his students. I thought, at the time, that it was more like bribery or a Pavlov kind of thing (my clinical side talking), but it could honestly have been as simple as giving your students something nice after what might have been a difficult lesson for them.

I've definitely learned that I'm not above bribery with my students, but also that looking forward to some kind of reward can help students get through the hard things. I've set up reward systems with some of my students where they can earn something like a certificate, a gel pen, a sticker, etc. The overarching principles in this reward system strategy can be applied to my future adult students in hopes of creating a more lighthearted dynamic in such a serious setting as university.

A really good example I saw recently on socials was about a student who had submitted a paper at like 2am, a few hours passed the deadline, and the prof noticed. Their first response was concern for their student. I can't remember exactly what was said, but it was along the lines of "your health is more important than my class, please don't stay up all night working. Sleep and hand it in in the morning, etc.". That kind of atmosphere that makes school more personable is what I want to give my students.

TLDR; this year seems to have been more about the personal side of teaching for me. I'm definitely in the process of refining and adapting my approach to teaching.

In terms of other reflections though, I think I've definitely developed more strategies and built up my teacher toolkit more over the last year.

I think I noticed the most improvements in my math abilities. I have these 2 flashcards that I made as guides to help student decipher what to do when there is a missing variable in an equation, and how to understand what operation is needed in word problems. It seems to have helped many of my students.

I think that's it for my reflections though. I look forward to continue to learn and grow as a teacher. I already can't wait to see how things change a year from now. Hopefully, by this time next year, I'll be teaching in Germany!