An assistant coach, who I believe is somewhere in his late 40′s (or maybe even 50′s, I’m bad at estimating ages) relayed that the 8th grade boys had asked him if they could play a song out loud on the bus ride to the game. It apparently had one bad word in it but was used only once. He told them yes, he said, but added with a grin, “I didn’t tell them that I was listening to Public Enemy on my ipod at the time.”
Don’t you think that navigating this balance between the personal and the professional is one of the most difficult challenges we face? Our charges don’t respond to us if we don’t open ourselves up to them at all – it’s the person inside that they respond to. The more “experienced” I become, the more I recognize the value of the well-placed personal anecdote in my work. Yet kids will also push the boundaries as far as they think they can can just to see what they can get away with, like calling you by your first name or discussing your love life. I think it’s especially difficult for younger teachers, whose very youth is an asset to trade on but whose limits are often tested more aggressively, and I’m certain that every one of us can think of a colleague who undermined their effectiveness by trying too hard to be their students’ friend, rather than their teacher.
Filed under: Pedagogy & Philosophy, Professionalism
