Teachers like to be in control. My financial planner husband would tell you most teachers are averse to risk, and some administrators say teachers by nature don’t like change, but I’d say those are just symptoms of the root cause–we became teachers because we like to be in charge.
I’m sure most of my teacher friends and colleagues recall their stint at “playing school.” I would convince the other kids in the neighborhood to come hang out in my (unfinished!) basement where I could command the room, bark out instructions, and basically boss people around. In sixth grade, I wrote a note to my teacher (which she held onto for 20 subsequent years) explaining how I would have led our class differently and how I envisioned what “my” classroom would look like one day.
Now that I am a teacher, I can assure you I’m not alone in my need for control. Everything from our addiction to office supplies which enable color-coding at every turn to setting up desks and chairs in increasingly confusing configurations (6 ft. apart nowadays) only to be mildly annoyed when others don’t see the logic behind what we’ve done proves to me that we enjoy our fiefdoms.
So, you can imagine how teaching through a pandemic where every day brings new information, changes to plans, quarantined students, a surprise schedule, a different technology platform, or even the arrival of a therapy dog, could send some of us over the edge. The truth is, though, we’re all Wile-E.-Coyote-beyond-the-edge these days, and each of us has been forced to face the reality that our belief we’ve been in charge is all a farce.
The educationese word of 2020 has been GRACE. Every email and every conversation seems to include some reference to teachers having grace, parents having grace, students have grace, either for themselves or for each other.
Grace is a lovely thought and much needed in 2020, but I’m ready to move beyond grace. I think what we really need is SERENITY–you know, as in the Serenity Prayer. For years, I facilitated a professional development course about managing student behavior. Early in the course, we taught a lesson about examining all the parts of your job that were in your control and out of your control, and about determining what could actually be changed. The exercise was important because so much of what teachers face cannot be altered no matter how insanely stupid a directive or a standardized test or a state mandate may be. Recognizing the limitations of our control, our need to be in charge of almost everything, marks the first step towards our serenity.
As I approach the end of the first quarter of the craziest, most overwhelming school year of my 23-year career, I’m going to accept that I do not have control over everything, or even most anything. Control has been an illusion, a comforting one, that must give way to my serenity.
In the words of George Costanza, “Serenity now!”