"You are a teacher, not a kamp counselor."
I must accept the reality of hearing "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am." Goodness gracious, do I hate it. From the Pre-K through second, maybe even third and fourth, graders, it's not that bad. Yes, I am okay with the fact that I am older than they are. They should respect me and respond to me properly, both in discipline and in regular conversation. However, when I have to ask the fifth, sixth, and seventh graders to respond to me with "yes and no ma'am," I cringe inwardly. At school, I cannot be 22. I find it ironic that as someone who has forever lived in the generation above (22 going on 46 as I say), I am having a difficult time acting that age.
I guess that part of the difficulty is that I just "grew up." College is truly over, and as much as I love my job and am daily excited to go to school, I am still saddened by the fact that I will never return to William and Mary as a student--that season of my life is indeed over. Being called "ma'am" confirms the reality that I must be an adult, no modifier "young" included.
However, I desperately desire to be a good teacher. I love teaching, I love my subjects, and I especially love my kids. For their sake, I have to teach them respect and the importance of submission to authority. I would not be serving and teaching them well if I selfishly chose not to instill respect. As Christians, we are called to respect other people, especially our elders, as well as to submit to authority. Somehow, that was a lesson that was never once mentioned in all of my years in college. Though I certainly grew up in this reality, it is one that I myself am having to "re-learn," for these are not values of my generation.
Further, accepting myself as an "authority" flies in the face of how young I know myself to be, how much I still have to learn. I struggle with the balance of teaching my kids respect and making it clear that I am very human, daily learning from my own mistakes. How do I demonstrate my inadequacy in the midst of Christ's adequacy when I am supposed to be a figure of authority? Yet another reminder of how much I have to learn. Again, it is ironic that a bossy, "know-it-all" with tendencies toward "extrapolated confidence" (thank you Lex) is struggling with accepting herself as an authority, when that's what I've desired for the greater portion of my life. God has such a sense of humor.
Transitions out of college and personal struggles aside, I have to remember that I am no longer a kamp counselor to my students. Especially as my middle school students are the same age as my K-West kampers, I look at the girls and see my sweet kampers all over again. However, my role is not to be friend to these girls. Yes, I can love, encourage, mentor, challenge, hug, and support them, but I must teach them. I cannot allow them to run in the halls, use "outdoor voices," or fail to finish work in the scheduled time, believing that they simply "need to be middle schoolers." Instead, I must hold them to standards--work will be finished in the allotted time, they will follow rules, and they will respect me. Demerits and detentions will ensue if these standards are not upheld. Discipline is my responsibility, for as I've said earlier, not to discipline would be to do these students a disservice. Students fearing me is not necessarily a bad thing.
Don't worry, I am not an overly strict or "mean" teacher. I am indeed young, and I am full of the energy of a young teacher. I desperately love my students, and they know that. I would do anything to help, encourage, and support them. However, as a teacher, I am learning a new aspect of working with kids--I cannot fail to discipline them or teach them respect and submission to authority. I cannot offer grace over a demerit every time, and the "ma'am" is not optional.
