Celebrating Teachers

Happy Teacher’s Appreciation Week! Thank you to all the teachers out there who pour their heart and soul into their students’ lives! You are amazing especially now as you teach through distance learning! Teachers are definitely the ones who are most adaptable to change. High five and a round of applause to all the teachers out there!

I once was a teacher, so I understand the hard work and challenges of being a teacher. This picture is a reminder of when I first started teaching as an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor. Today, I am no longer a teacher, but I still have a teacher’s heart and look fondly at the memories.

Looking back to my childhood, I knew I always wanted to be a teacher. I loved my 5th grade teacher so much that I wanted to be like her. In my 5th grade class, one of our assignments was to write about our future selves. In my story, I wrote about going to Cal State East Bay for college and becoming an elementary school teacher. Part of my dreams came true as I became a teacher. I attended Cal State East Bay for a Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and became an ESL teacher. I decided to become an ESL teacher when I went on a mission’s trip to teach English overseas after college. During my trip, I enjoyed teaching conversational English to middle schoolers overseas while sharing my faith and teaching the Bible to them. It was during this time that I would pursue a teaching career.

When I look back at my younger teacher self, I would tell myself to have patience and grace with myself because the learning curve for teaching is steep and teaching is harder than it looks. This was the first job that I experienced disrespect and had to demand authority from someone else. Through these difficult teaching experiences, I definitely developed thicker skin and it refined my character.

When I first began teaching, I was an emotional wreck who rode an emotional roller coaster of many highs and lows. I wrote in my teaching journal titled “Survival and Barely Surviving”:

“Last week was my first week of teaching and it has been the hardest job I’ve ever had. I’ve been trying to survive as a teacher, so I’m proud that I survived this week. I felt so many emotions while teaching my classes and I’ve never experienced so much stress. I struggled balancing my life with all that I have to do, but all I want to do now is cry. I can’t cry because it takes so much energy to cry and let out my feelings. I don’t even have time now to cry. This whole week, I’ve been consumed with my negative emotions and had to hold my tears back. This week, I’ve had moments where I just wanted to give up, but a part of me wanted to hang on. Now, I’m barely surviving. Tiredness and exhaustion are weighing me down.

Today, I was thinking that I want to be an inspiring teacher. I want to be remembered as a teacher who pushed my students to the best of his or her abilities, but I admit that the students in my classes are far from being their best or perhaps I’m not pushing hard enough. They have so much potential, but they don’t try their best. For the upcoming week, I am not settling for survival, but I am pushing the students to reach their potential. There’s just so much I want to teach the students. If there’s one thing I want the students to take away, it would have to be that they have the ability to improve their English skills.

I have high expectations for my students and I expect so much from them. Is it wrong to have high expectations from students? I really want them to learn and succeed. I expect all my students to put effort into learning as I put effort to be a teacher. Why come to class when you’re not here to learn? I’d rather not have students come to class if they don’t want to learn. I’ve learned this week that you can’t force someone to learn, but you have to accept each person the way he or she is.

I need to remind myself that their behavior is not a reflection of how I am as a teacher. I can’t believe that I’m not a good teacher due to the way students respond in the classroom. I admit that I tend to be hard on myself because I expect so much of myself and from my students. I need to give myself some slack. I think it’s easier to point out the negative aspects rather than the positives, but I need to focus more on the positive aspects.

Some positives of teaching include: 1) Students are trusting me and loosening up in class. 2) Two students actually want me as their teacher and don’t want to switch classes. 3) Students are getting competitive playing English games. Learning is fun! 4) One student is improving in his speaking abilities. 5) Students are engaged with the language and speaking to each other. 6) Each of my students want to be the teacher and are correcting each other’s mistakes.”

When I look back at what I wrote in my teaching journal, I noted all the difficult moments and struggles. Being self-critical back then, I found it easier to see all my faults rather than the silver lining. There is a silver lining to every story, but I may not be able to see it in the moment. Even though my students may not been able to articulate their learning struggles, I’m sure they worked as hard as I did and overcame their challenges. I’m thankful that teaching started to look brighter after the first year when I finally got the hang of teaching.

One of my best teaching moments was seeing students progress in learning. One of the students in the picture above came to my beginning ESL class without any English skills. He repeated my class twice. By the end the second time repeating the class, he was able to speak sentences in English. As a result, he was very proud of his progress by validating his accomplishments. Stories like his make teaching worth while.

I’m thankful for the challenges and blessings of teaching. It was not an easy journey. In the end, I had to give up being a teacher because I burnt out from teaching. I wished it didn’t have to end that way, but I couldn’t sustain being a teacher even though I tried my best to hang on. I grieved ending that chapter of my life and I cherish all the moments I had as a teacher. As I look back at the past, teaching has helped me to be a better person by having more empathy for others. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be a teacher.