I have a love hate relationship with teaching. 

I get anxious before I teach. It’s like I have stage fright every time. Not the sweaty-palmed mumbling kind of anxious, just a slight sinking feeling that only goes away once I am teaching.

The sinking feeling is the worst in the morning when I feel like I’d rather be somewhere else. And when I get inside the classroom, only then do I relax.

Once I am teaching, I feel fine. Great even.

Today, that one class was giving me a hard time like they always do. I was screaming and yelling, confiscating shit and kicking people out left and right. One kid “swore on his head” that he’d be quiet, as long as I stopped writing his name on the board. Another one ran at me, put his hand over his heart and  in a passionate mix of French and Arabic implored “please don’t tell the principal”.

I wrote the name.

I told the principal.

This class was –and always is–a constant fight, and today I was fighting to win. 

There was me yelling in (probably bad) French, all of the phrases I knew, copied from other angry teachers, to get the class to shut up. Then there were the kids only half understanding what I said, not including the kids that were off in the corner doing back-flips and throwing basketballs of course. And finally the sad-eyed well-behaved kids who kind of wanted to learn something but were still only a sliver away from corruption.

The whole scene just made me laugh; the whole idea of school, of being serious and of me “putting on the mask” and becoming someone else. In a lot of ways teaching feels like a play with all the classes as different acts.

Indeed, as I walked from the crazy class into the cheerful and orderly kindergarten room, I started a new act; one without yelling or scolding, just lots of singing.

Every day is different. You’re always guaranteed to learn something new, and the kids will continue to invent ways to amuse/annoy you.

Yes it was stressful, but afterward I just found it all very, well…funny. However, I find myself glad that there is no school tomorrow. 

A+

-D.