Fundamental truths about my teacher self

I’m about to embark on my teacher journey with my first day less than a week away. There are a few things about how I feel right now that I don’t want to forget along my career.

The first is that I believe, no matter the age of anybody, that everybody deserves respect. I don’t think it’s kids vs adults. I think it’s kids and adults. Adults pave the way for kids and model the moral behaviours.

I value discipline over punishment.

I believe a smile goes a long way.

I will do whatever is necessary to help my kids achieve their dreams. They deserve a quality education and role model.

I will listen.

I will feel.

I will care.

I will ride out the hard days and learn from them.

I will continually improve my practise using research.

I will be organised.

This is the scariest thing I’ve done, which means it’s an opportunity for growth.

 

 

Thoughts

I want to be a kind person. A person who sees the good in everybody. It just so happens that I live with two people who test my patience, sanity and my ability to love everybody.

I’ve never been an angry person before, but these people get under my skin. I found myself tossing and turning this morning in bed with anger, I wanted to scream at them and throw their things out the house. I couldn’t be happy spending time with my boyfriend because I was so angry with my housemates that I had this contagious, sour mood. I resent myself for taking my boyfriend for granted sometimes. He is the sweetest person.

How do you love someone when you hate them so much? I recognise that a major part of my frustration with my housemates is my inability to control them. I can’t make them clean up, to keep their possession in their own spaces, to acknowledge my presence. I can’t say anything to change their behaviour or like me more. To some extent I even feel I’m exhausted with kindness. How do you continually be nice to people who shut you off and pretend you don’t exist? Who don’t value your voice?

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow I will be kind, resilient and strong. I will let things go and recognise that I can’t control other people. Maybe my situation isn’t fair and I should speak up, or maybe I should just be happy with what I’ve got and love my housemates despite our grievances.