As a child and young adult, I would never have used the word “patient” to describe myself, far from it. I had a low tolerance for others who struggled to finish things at the pace I considered normal. Obviously, this sort of mindset works detrimentally in my chosen profession and perhaps contributed to my struggles as a teacher the first time around.
As the years have progressed in my restarted teaching career and I have invested in becoming the best teacher I possibly can, an unexpected side effect came along, additional patience. One of my students last year kept telling me that she had no idea how I had so much patience when dealing with certain other students in the class. I told her that I had learned from experience. During my first time in education I frequently lost my cool with my students. That never ended well back then.
When I started teaching again, my fear of things ending like the first time around motivated me to seek out solutions. Those solutions involved staying calm throughout the interaction which serves a coolant for hot tempers.
Recently, two back to back incidents revealed how this works as well as what happens when my patience runs out. The first occurred during tutoring after school. I work with a student who I do not teach during the day but prior to starting to work with him had heard plenty from other teachers. When I met him, I realized that while hyperactive, he was a good kid that I enjoyed working with. It took him longer to complete things but with help he could get it done. on this particular session, we spent the whole time working through a science project that had been due several weeks before. It should have taken perhaps 20 minutes but for this student it took much longer. Instead of becoming exasperated every time he opened a new tab to look at “chonky” dogs or to play the Soviet anthem, I simply smiled or laughed and then gently guided him back to the task at hand. By midway through the next day’s tutoring session, he had successfully completed the project.
After we finished, I reflected on the session and realized that this student simply needed a little more attention, the space to let his brain roam, and someone to sit with him to guide him back to the assignment.
Just the next school day, however, something happened that illustrates the work on patience that I still need to complete. In my second period I have a student who has chosen repeatedly to indulge in misbehavior, acting only for himself as he told me to my face. This means that he often chooses to do exactly the opposite of what I had asked him to do. On the day in question, I had also received an email that upset and angered me, something that for now I will only allude to. The student persisted in doing something I had specifically instructed him to not do; I don’t even remember what it was. I snapped at him, more than once. Did it do anything? Of course not. It just made him even more defensive.
Almost immediately after. I snapped, I knew I had messed up. I knew that I had acted without the patience crucial to working with difficult students. I consider this a step in the right direction. This proves that by no means am I perfect but more importantly the power of being open to learning and growing.