Decades of Teaching Experience Can't Prepare You For This

“You’re not even qualified to teach us.”

I stopped writing and turned around to look at him. Four additional pairs of eyes of the class also locked onto me.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, you don’t have a Masters in Education, so what makes you qualified to be teaching us?”

Honestly, my first reaction was, naturally, to invite him up to the front of the class and leave. Quit. Just walk out the door.

I’m ashamed to say that it wasn’t the first time, either.

At some point every aspiring educator feels it

Imposter syndrome is one of the worst afflictions that we impose upon ourselves in everything that we do, no matter how much experience or background we accumulate. It’s almost as if we’re trying to prove to ourselves once we start that we truly are what we struggle to become.

As usual, I let the moment pass. By now, I was used to handling the syndrome after years of dealing with it. What followed was the natural question and the detachment from my ego. Over the next few days, I pondered the question with the respect and introspection that it deserved…

He had a point—what qualified me to teach him a language that I myself hadn’t truly mastered? Every single one of the kids in my class had at least one native speaker. Why did these parents send their kids to be tortured for 90 minutes a week by someone like me when they could just as easily have done it themselves?

Then I realized that I could barely scrounge together that amount of time to teach my own children, one of whom was in the next room in another class, the same language! On top of the mountain of other responsibilities that we all had, I had the audacity to volunteer my time to try and impart whatever feeble amount of knowledge that I had to other children. The nerve!

This line of thought forced me to review my own teaching resume:

• 12: math tutor in the sixth grade

• 13: Tae Kwon Do instructor for a local school

• 16: Tai Chi instructor for theater students

• 17: piano teacher for a summer

• 18: Tae Kwon Do instructor for college club

• 19: Dance choreographer and teacher for college dance team

• 21: A cappella arranger, singer, and leader for cultural performances

• 27: Tenure track engineering professor for SC State

• 28: Fight choreographer for several theater productions

• 30: Tai Chi instructor for private practitioners

• 33: Swing dance instructor for the local swing dance club

After that, I got married and started a family. Parents are lifelong teachers.

At 41, I started dipping my toes back into the community assisting in teaching Tai Chi and now the Chinese class.

When I look at the track record, it seems that I have at least two decades of non-stop teaching experience…as well as a degree that qualifies me to teach at any college campus.

And yet, it only took one kid (not much older than when I started teaching) to make me question everything I was trying to do.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s healthy to check yourself at the door and remember that you aren’t perfect. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in every single position that I held, and my demeanor doesn’t exactly inspire respect and authority. Animals and children mark me for a sucker the moment they see me, and I know that’s been an ongoing issue without someone to keep them in check. There are two dogs, four cats, and another five being fostered in our garage at the moment to remind me…

Maybe I do have a problem.

It’s not you, it’s me

I take full responsibility for my inability to maintain discipline in a classroom setting.

If I haven’t earned the respect of my peers, my colleagues, or my students, I don’t deserve to hold their attention for even a second, let alone an hour and change. Every previous teaching position I had required demonstration of my competence prior to being granted that authority. From good grades to belt colors to diplomas, each one had a gate that everyone agreed was the minimum prerequisite.

Which brings me back to my current conundrum. I just showed up one day after the principal of the school requested that I take over so she could run the whole shebang and coordinate more (and better) activities for the community we serve. With these kids, I hadn’t established any type of ground rules or impressed upon them that I had a decent command of the language.

Still, I’m in my second year with them. Recent feedback from observers has been damning. I still can’t get through one lesson without all of them leaving for the bathroom at once or having at least one of them annoy the rest of the class, and knowledge retention is scant.

If you’re a teacher in a similar situation, here’s what I’m going to try (fingers crossed):

1. Establish expectations and rules - They don’t see it as a “real class”, and I’m not a “real teacher”. This has to change.

2. Provide incentives and rewards - This is an ongoing effort by the principal and has worked well in the past.

3. Provide direct feedback and proof - Parents don’t really know what we’re covering, and my time has been limited outside of teaching. I need to provide more updates and connect with them more often.

4. Enforce consequences - I’ve been reluctant to flex my authority in the past. I’m just a volunteer after all, but a blunt conversation with a parent about busines reminded me of something: You are allowed to “fire” your clients.

5. Ask for help - I’m a teacher, not a babysitter. I’ll ask parents to sit in on the class since my “skin in the game” and ROI aren’t in the same space as theirs.

So there it is. I know it’s not going to be easy since I haven’t had this kind of challenge in the past, but it’s been a year…long enough to acknowledge that I have a problem that needs to be addressed. If I can’t earn the trust and respect of these kids, I’m going to have a much harder time when I’m called upon to do it again at scale someday.

Come to think of it, these five changes are also applicable to just about any aspect of life. It’s easy to do it on a personal level when you know yourself well. It’s an entirely different can of worms when doing it for others, regardless of the background.

As the saying goes, though, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

P.S. If you are interested in me expanding on my experiences, comment below!