by Jeff Williams 

Scott Elias over at Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? had a great post  a while back about Roadblocks (meaning teachers who are not only always negative, but whose prefessional decisions end up damaging  their students’ lives) and how to deal with these - ahem!! - teachers.

So it got me thinking. How DO you keep a positive attitude when there are fellow teachers around constantly badgering you with how awful the students are, how “stupid” the administrators’ decisions are, and how naive their fellow teachers are who believe they can actually - get this - teach EVERY kid, and help them on their life’s journey. As in every school, there are teachers who are genuinely convinced of the overall goodness in kids; and there are teachers who should have never gone into the profession. My challenge over the years has been, especially as a teacher-leader who aspires to go into administration one day soon, how do I work with these people? Now in my present job it can be as easy as I want to make it. I do not have to associate with them if I do not want to. However, that’s not helping with my professional growth is it? So how do I help these teachers - many of whom have been teaching far longer than I have - remember (or even see for the first time) that our students want to learn, CAN learn,  and can very well be successful in the classroom if we help them.

Usually over the years I have ignored these people. They have been of no importance to me. But that’s not really the right attitude to take. That, ladies and gentleman, is doing the EXACT SAME THING that those teachers do to their victims students. Let me tell you what I absolutely love about teaching. Ready?

I do something - and it sounds over used and cliched, but I swear it works - I KEEP MY MIND ON THE KIDS. I have told them for years that they are the best part of my job. Most of the time the students don’t believe me, but by the end of the semester I have quite a few students say that they believe me now and that they appreciate me. Seldom do the words come out that way, they usually say “thanks Mr. Williams, I REALLY enjoyed your class”.

Something else I do.

As often as I teach the curriuculum, I like to teach life lessons. Sometimes ad nauseum. But when a student comes back a couple of years later and says that they really don’t remember much about the Han empire of China, but they remember my lessons about responsibility, trust, and “life”, and my support of them… then that makes it worthwhile.
Oh, and those teachers who are in the planning area complaining about….. uh, well everything… I will continue to work with them in preparation for when I have to do it for a living, but I don’thear them. I only hear my students laughter, their questions, their complaints, their stories about “Halloween Horror Nights” at Universal Orlando, or stories about losing yet another football game. Now THAT is music to MY ears.