My favorite age was eight. There were twenty students in my third grade. Everyone was pretty friendly. The musical performance that year was Aladdin, and we had a young teacher.
Every other teacher had been far older. But, when the regular third grade teacher had taken half-a-year off, we studied with a long-term substitute. One gift I treasured for years was the paperback 1997 Guinness World Record book I received from her.
This year I got to revisit my favorite age and grade as a substitute teacher myself. I’ve been working as a push-in ESL substitute since, during the pandemic, the regional ESL teacher is not allowed to travel between schools. She has virtual lessons with the SLIFE student I have been brought in to help, but I provide additional help during ELA in the mornings.
I’m lucky because I get to work with a teacher who is in her final year before retirement. At the end of her 35-year career, she employs excellent classroom management and modern student-centered teaching methods. I couldn’t have been more fortunate.
I was struck by the fact that the teacher admitted that she still felt bad about having one day recently lost her temper with a student. She had said, “I just don’t know what to do with you,” referring to a student who has the habit of distracting herself and others by talking out of turn.
I couldn’t believe such a composed and effective teacher could feel so bad that she’d worry much about something she had said in class. But, I understand how easy it is to worry about emotional events at work.
In my teaching career, do I want to worry about what happens in class when I am sixty and so close to retirement? Hardly, but it is likely to happen from time to time. I could only hope to be as successful as the great teacher I have been working with these past three months.
