One of my biggest weaknesses when teaching is the need to "save" the students. Which means to help them solve their every problem and every need in a satisfactory way. What? Trying to help people is a weakness? Well, in the classroom it is.
The principal at UTEC's teaching school - which is an elementary school that fits UTEC's "urban" requirement and where we meet for classes, NOT our student teaching placement schools; we also partner with this school for several community projects such as tutoring, science fairs, etc - has a favorite decree: Pity these students and fail at teaching. Ok, not exactly in those words, but something like it.
I think I'm only beginning to understand what she meant by that now. As a teacher, I CAN'T treat every single student like a social worker or counselor would treat their cases. That's why there are social workers and counselors. Even though the issues students deal with in their daily life affects their academics and behaviors, I'm not out to address those events. That is not in my job description. And I forget that often, because these affects are such an integral part of the classroom that I find it difficult to separate it from academics.
In a way this impedes me from advancing in my behavior management (hm, maybe this was what my supervisor was talking about). Students sense I am empathetic and sympathetic and thus see me as a potential easy solution to their problems. Which I am not. But they sense it and they take it and I sometimes allow them to walk all over me like a carpet. Which not only distracts me from teaching, it also is just not cool. It teaches them how to take advantage of people, which can develop into something much more sinisterly manipulative than its innocent beginnings. Besides, there are 30 other students in the room that need something from me. I have neither the energy, time, or resources to address each and every single one of their individual problems AND teach the curricula from seven different subjects. It's a trap of ineffectiveness that digs its own hole so silently, that I'm six feet under before I realize anything is amiss.
I've got to train myself out of it. The sooner, the better.
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