My kids saw me in anxious mode today, and I didn’t like it.

One of the things I like about myself and my teaching is that students have a very difficult time reading me. When I am tired or nervous or cranky or angry, they can’t tell. This is great because on the days when a kid does get to me none of them can tell, and on days when I feel really overwhelmed and stressed out the kids are insulated from that—they don’t pick up on it at all. I have a teacher image of being always calm and unruffled and confident.

But this science fair stuff. After school today kids stayed after to help us arrange all of the displays and I was really anxious about losing boards and mislabeling projects and keeping the roster and schedule organized and I was exhausted because I haven’t slept well a single night this week. The kids, who are really stressed themselves, definitely picked up on my anxiety. I’ve been trying to keep them calm all year, especially leading into midterms and then science fair. It bothers me that I let that calm teaching persona slip.

About twice a class period I find myself urging my students to calm down. One day they’re bound to figure out that I’m mostly saying it to myself.

8 Notes/ Hide

  1. frangle reblogged this from iamlittlei
  2. hugsandmorningair said: “calm, unruffled, and confident” - I like that. Sooo need to learn how to do that… And to my REAL kids, at that! Hope tomorrow’s a true new day for you!
  3. lhuddles said: perhaps you can show them just how human you are and then they can have a good example of how to deal with stress. some kids just dont know what to do when they stress, and it ends horribly
  4. privilegedwhitegirl said: Nope, by the time they actually figure that out it’ll be the end of the year and you’ll have a new batch of kids to settle
  5. iamlittlei posted this