I have been teaching for almost a year. I am accustomed to it now; the ways of the children and the work I must put in to ensure lessons run smoothly.
On Monday mornings, I teach English and then History in the afternoon. The children tend to get somewhat rowdy after they have finished their lunch, like a group of football fans on a pub crawl after they’ve had a couple of drinks. It was difficult for me at first, to shout at the children when they don’t listen. It seems barbaric, inhuman to do such a thing. But I have learnt that as a teacher, you cannot let people walk over you, walk over your body while your corpse is still demanding respect.
Since this realisation, I now regularly administer detentions, give the children lines, and send them to the headteacher when they misbehave.
But today, something peculiar happened.
One of the boys in the year eight class used profane language in my lessons. This is not peculiar; it is a common occurrence in secondary schools. Boys at that age, they use this type of language a lot. I am used to hearing their remarks when I walk around the classroom, the way they speak as if they think teachers do not have ears to hear and eyes to see the words that splatter out of their mouth to contrive status from their peers.
But I digress. You must hear about the peculiar event that happened in my classroom. Well, as I was saying, a child used a rude word in my class while I was teaching. What frustrated me most, was that he had the audacity to shout it out while I was speaking to the class, as if he thought I’d just let him get away with it. All I heard was the word:
‘Anus!’
And then an outburst of laughter from the class. Perhaps it is because I am young, and so they think me inexperienced and unable to deal with such misbehaviour. But I walked right up to his desk, and I became a thunderbolt.
‘Stand up,’ I said to the accused.
‘I didn’t do anything Miss,’ the boy protested.
‘Stand up,’
I was resolute and determined to see that I carried out this punishment. In the past, I had always been too soft. I never wanted to send the children to the headteachers office because I knew he was extremely strict. But he does the job and the children always come out of his office as if they had just been sent out of prison. Fearful, but remorseful from the actions that sent them out of class.
The boy stood up with a sigh. At his full height he must have been about 4’11. It was funny to see how a pre-adolescent child can adopt such adult, sexual words as part of his dialect, without even knowing the meaning of them.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing Miss,’
‘I heard you shout a word across the classroom while I was speaking. Please repeat it for the class,’
‘He said the word ‘anus’ Miss,’ one of the boys informed me proudly.
There was shame scattered around the accused’s face and he did not dare look at the other boys who had incited such language. He remained silent and bowed his head.
‘If you are ashamed to say what you said in front of everyone, you should not be saying it at all,’
‘I’m sorry Miss. It won’t happen again’.
It was at that moment when the child looked at me with that sorrow and embarrassment in his black eyes, that I realised what immense power I have. I have the power to humiliate. I have the power to punish, to shape minds, to preach my own ideology forth onto these clean slates and inexperienced minds. As teachers, we have a power over the children. A power we do not even realise.
I decided not to send him to the headteachers office. The flaming red that rose on his cheeks was punishment enough for his actions. After all, I believe he was only succumbing to peer pressure and conforming to the profane and sexualised language that he hears his friends use.
It had never struck me before, that I had any power. On the contrary, I felt that the students had power over me. And they do. They have the power to fire me, as I have that same power to expel them. They could easily lie about me if they did not like me and slander my name and reputation, in the same way that I could fail them and make their parents displeased with them. Even babies, new-borns who have just appeared from the womb, have a power over us. They sow the seed of love within us, and make us devote our every energy to raising them. It's the small things that have the biggest power.
I suppose we all have power. Even those we think are not powerful, even those who historically have held no power. This power is forged in the mind. It is something that is ignited in our brains when we realise that we can use this power. It just depends on whether we use this power for good or for ill.
But I'd always thought I was completely powerless. Because I am a woman, because I am not white, because I am the youngest in the school that I work at. Because when I was in school, I was bullied and humiliated, and I could do nothing to my oppressors but cry and hate myself. I’ve always thought I was powerless because I don’t know how to fight when men from dark alleyways approach me and follow me. Because I feel vulnerable when I am alone in the dark, because my limbs are weak with the weight of my heavy thoughts.
But we make our own power. It's how we survive.
The children and the school have nothing to do with these feelings I have. This incident was merely an eye opener, a drug to enhance my ruminations regarding my relationship to my world and the world of others.
In this world, we carve our own destinations in the plan of our destinies, we engrave our own journey onto the maps they create for us.
We make our own power. We make it to survive.
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
3 comments
Oh this resonated a lot with me. As a teacher who started out pretty young (I was 20 when I started teaching) I felt very powerless in the beginning. You feel almost like you need to entertain, to be cool, to have the students like you. Today after 7 years I literally know how much power I have in the classroom. "...because I am not white, because I am the youngest in the school that I work at. Because when I was in school, I was bullied and humiliated, and I could do nothing to my oppressors but cry and hate myself. I’ve always thought I ...
Reply
Thank you so much! This comment means so much to me and I'm so glad that my work has resonated with you. (Funnily enough, I've learnt that the kids I teach really aren't that bad compared to other schools lol, so this incident was very minor!)
Reply
They sow the seed of love within us, and make us devote our every energy to raising them. It's the small things that have the biggest power. Interesting, you should write about how these same babies grow up and discard the ones that loved them, corpses demanding respect indeed
Reply