Proud of Me

[Editor’s note: progressiveteacher81 is the pseudonym for a second-year elementary school teacher in Manhattan.]

In my school we believe that teaching is guiding someone just a little bit past their current abilities. We measure students against their own personal best. Students are held to reasonable and reachable standards. It also means that they can always do better.

I apply this philosophy even more rigidly to myself. As a second year teacher I am infinitely more successful than I was last year, and with that success, my estimation of my abilities is infinitely higher.

One area that I am always working on is patience. How do I deal with students who are acting annoying (calling it “bothering other students” or “not doing work”) in a way that helps them to deal better but doesn’t show my annoyance?

In the first week of school, Chaluk particularly challenged me in this way. Chaluk came to first grade insisting that he could not do the work. “I dunno,” was his stock answer and he would shrug and disengage. Disengagement led to boredom and I spent a lot of time redirecting him so that he didn’t distract other students.

Because Chaluk struggles particularly with communication and speech, it was difficult for me to understand what directions he understood and ignored and when he was confused. Between the speech difficulties and his continued insistence that he didn’t know, I had trouble gauging what he did know and therefore trouble modifying assignments to appropriately challenge him.

The low point with Chaluk came on the first Friday we were in school. After bumping another student, he refused to apologize, ultimately leading to the first time-out of the year. Reminding me of Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scribner who insists at his bosses’ every request, “I prefer not,” Chaluk’s disengagement confused and frustrated me. I wanted to be able to teach him. I wanted him to be happy in school. I wanted him to engage with me, his classmates, and the activities. I was stuck.

Sick of hearing the sound of my own voice redirecting him, I went from critique to overpowering praise whenever he did something I could support. A letter sounded out independently was cause for celebration. A meeting sat quietly through was a victory that received private and public accolades. I also found Chaluk had a talent for remembering details in our daily chapter book read-aloud and was a relatively confident math student. Here were two areas where he could shine and I called on him regularly.

The second Friday of the year, I didn’t have to redirect Chaluk once. He did his “best work” academically and behaviorally. I typically end the day with “thank yous.” First I thank two children for specific work and then children thank each other. That day I thanked Chaluk.

As I shared details of the wonderful work he had done, Chaluk started to beam (something he had not yet done in school). For the first time, I saw him directly respond to words spoken to him. After many students thanked each other, he raised his hand. Glowing proudly he declared, “I just really want to say, I am really proud of me.”

Though he hadn’t quite gotten that the activity was about acknowledging someone else, when I looked around the classroom, his classmates (sometimes quick to notice such discrepancies) were smiling proudly at him and I too was grinning.

Chaluk’s words have echoed in my head for the last month. He reminded me that, as important as it is to always push oneself and be pushed further, it is also important to stop and recognize what one can feel proud of – something I forget to do in my focus on personal growth.

Thus, I must say again, thank you Chaluk, because of you, I can be, at least a little bit proud of me.

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