Maybe you should go teach and here’s why
One of the most pleasurable things about teaching is the large number of personalities that come before teachers each day.
Consider the following scenario. It’s the first day of school. You have never seen the 32 17-year-olds who are walking into your classroom. This is their last year of high school. Contrary to what many adults think, most high school seniors do not think they know everything. Most of them are sobered by the fact that in a matter of months they must make a decision about their future. Their faces reflect this new reality.
They are choosing their seats. It’s commonly believed that the first standard by which we judge (or prejudge or misjudge) people is how they look. The second standard is how they talk. These, of course, are faulty and unfair standards. Some of the most neatly dressed students, you will learn, are from poor families, and some of the sloppiest dressed are from well-heeled parents. Some of the quietest and most nonverbal are intelligent and eloquent; some of the most self-confident and outspoken have vacuous minds.
They come with all of their contradictions. A Hillary Clinton-type personality walks in. You’ve taught scores of Hillarys. They’ve all run for student body president. The Hillarys always take a front seat. They choose one of the rows against the wall so that whenever it comes their time to say something, they can shift their bodies and see the entire class as they wave their hands in the air and speak their piece.
The Hillarys know a great deal. They study hard. But they also look down on those who are not as well-informed as they themselves think they are. Frankly the Hillarys, but for their self-importance, could teach their classmates and the teacher a great deal, but their likability is low, their high self-regard a turn-off.
Equal to the Hillarys in their zest for life are the Gomer Pyles. The Gomers are the delight of every teacher and the friend of all the students in the classroom. Slow of mind but smart in a different way, they bring out the best from the rest of the class with the exception of the embarrassed Hillarys who, when a Gomer speaks, always turn back toward the front, cross their arms, and look down as though refusing to acknowledge him.
All of the other students encourage the Gomers. They realize the Gomers need help. They make eye contact with the teacher whenever a Gomer says something off the wall or something totally irrelevant to the discussion. You’re encouraged when students show kindness to the Gomers.
Sweathogs can make anybody enjoy teaching. Remember “Welcome Back, Kotter”? It’s fun when three or four of them are in the same class, but believe me, you don’t want a room full of them as Mr. Kotter had in the television show. Sweathogs show us that serious learning can be fun. The most hilarious thing they do is put their hand in the air (they’re high school seniors, remember) and wave it desperately like a third grader whenever they know the answer to a question. Of course, they’re showing out. Most of your Sweathogs know where to draw the line with their shenanigans, and they will lighten your load and everybody else’s.
You will appreciate the Sweathogs for the way they transform the Donald Trumps. Trumps always come in surrounded by their own air, but only for the first couple of weeks. You will seldom have more than one in a class. There’s no smiling and their private air is dripping with condescension. Their facial expressions indicate they have other things to do, though they study and excel. For those first few days you will think they’re deliberately trying to irritate you by the tapping of their pencil on their desk, but when you ask them to stop, they apologize and stop. They are rich boys and they know it. They like and need active learning.
It’s the Sweathogs who burst the Trumps’ bubble. Their parents are blue collar workers, that social strata a Trump knows nothing about. But he soon warms to them. They’re interesting. They also have something he needs: the ability to connect with those around him. So being smart, the Trumps get to know the Sweathogs, the Gomer Pyles, and the Hillarys. The Trumps win them over, all because they welcomed them to their world.
By the end of the semester these different personality types learn to like each other. They change each other. You, the teacher, revel each and every day at the social and academic growth of every student personality.