Do not smile until Christmas, a rule new teachers should ignore

As the stories over lunch, flowed about how we learned our craft, I thought about when I was a student teacher,  working with a Preston. Over time, Preston became a good friend and was a wonderful mentor to me. When I was a student teacher,  I was sure of myself. My enemies might say arrogant, my friends might say I was caught up in my own importance. I thought I was serious, dedicated and going to change the world. I prepared my lessons, knew the curriculum and I was confident in front of the students. 

I had learned the rule of the day for new teachers. The rule was (Do Not Smile until Christmas). The thinking at the University was that if you wanted to maintain classroom control, you had to be strict and unyielding in the use of your power.  I followed that rule in my first week of teaching the classes and I thought Preston and the other teachers were impressed.

What I did not know was that I was too serious, too unyielding, and I had forgotten the reason I was there, which was to reach children and help them learn. I was not there to just teach the curriculum. The first day of my second week Preston called me aside and said he wanted me to try some multimedia in the Consumer Ed class I was teaching. He had this record that he wanted me to play for the students. 

Naturally, I wanted to preview the material, but Preston and the others said there was no need. All I needed to do was to impress on the students how serious they should take what they were about to hear and to pay close attention as Preston would test them on the material when I went back to university. 

Feeling full of self-importance for being given such an important task so early in my student teaching, I did what I was asked to do, and I really laid it on thick. I then put on the record. The recording was of a serious of jokes about passing gas with all of the prerequisite sound effects. The class started to laugh and I did as well.  I lost control of the class, but I did make a connection with the students that made the rest of my time as a student teacher much more fun.

Preston told me after class that he believed I needed to relax and to focus on the students, which I started to do. I also learned to not take myself seriously either in the class or in life. One of my other classes was a grade 12 Accounting class which was first thing in the morning and every class I had a student fell asleep about 30 minutes into the lesson. I was upset the first time it happened and I woke the student up and gave him a detention at noon. 

After the class, I talked to Preston about what I should do and he told me that the young man was working two jobs to help his family and he only had classes in the morning. By noon he was finished school. Preston said the young man worked from 3 to 11 at a gas station in town and then worked from 12 to 8 at the local mill. Preston said that this was the student's final semester and he would be the first to graduate high school from his family. I was impressed by the young man's dedication to his education, but I still bothered by the fact he fell asleep in my class. Preston said he had allowed him to sleep and said that he was happy that the young man made it to school.  

I thought about my conversation with Preston and when the student came into detention, I said I would allow him to sleep but the only condition was that if he was snoring,  I would have someone wake him up.  The rest of the time I was teaching him, the student always fell asleep after about 30 minutes, and he never snored. I learned that although my voice had some power, it did not the power to keep one awake if they were tired.

I enjoyed the time I spent with Preston as his student teacher and whenever I saw him in my professional career, he always reminded me that as teachers we always have to put students first. It was a lesson I learned and applied every day of my teaching career.  I only regret that I never did get a copy of that record.