I had a conversation with a few SIers during UNCCWP SI about adopting the persona of "teacher." I think I was sharing about how sometimes I dislike my "teacher self." By this, I mean the person who reacts calmly to bad situations, who doesn't get offended by weird student comments, and who has an in-charge personality in the classroom. It's not like any of those things are bad, it's just that sometimes being that person tires me.
I started thinking about not being "Teacher Christin" anymore. Than I realized that the kids would go crazy and think no one was in charge. And then I started to think about being present with my students and how I want to do more writing with them in classroom. I started thinking about how my teacher-self and writer-self could coexist in greater harmony.
And then...
One of my former students suffered a horrific tragedy...a great loss. For the sake of privacy that's all I'll say about that. But the magnitude of the student's loss made me think about what mattered to the student when he was in my classroom. I thought about the conversations we've had since he graduated a couple years ago and the things he remembers about our time together. He remembers me being very honest, very straightforward, very strong and in charge. He liked that. He liked that I could challenge him and he liked that I was authentic about what I taught. And I was being "teacher Christin" at some points during his time in my classes. I started thinking about being authentic and human and "teacher" all at the same time. Wow...these were some deep thoughts...
So where I'm at with this right now is that I can be all these things. It's ok, as long as I'm being authentically the teacher/writer/person/student/etc. Because in the end, I'm still in the lives of some of my former students. They still see me as their teacher...but they see me as a human being too, because that's what I was in the classroom.
