Growing up, one of the shows that I absolutely loved was “Boy
Meets World”. I fell in love with the Matthews family and their friends, and
especially Mr. Feeny. I looked forward to the pearls of wisdom he had, and
found it hard to fathom that Feeny was a television character. What William
Daniels brought to that character, and to the millions of people that watched,
was the idea that you should never be afraid to try.
A month into the new school year, I am still settling in and
trying to find my place. My seniors and I are valiantly struggling through
Beowulf together, and the ideas and discussions they have presented are
astounding. My freshmen and I are discovering the short story and talking about
different cultures. Although I was apprehensive to make a discipline switch,
teaching English so far has been an incredible amount of fun, and I’ve fallen
easily into a good repertoire with a lot of students.
Still, I struggle. I am not George Feeny. I don’t have a
thousand metaphors for a hundred things. I certainly cannot rock a tweed suit.
Sometimes I stay up late at night because I second guess my ability to do
something. Then I realize that Mr. Feeny is a character. I am not. I wake up
every day and face 130 students. I have had to break up two fights since the
school year began and both times I have analyzed them to death wondering what I
could have done, when in reality, there was little I could have done to stop either
of them.
I thought this would be easy, that I could walk into my
second year and everything would go swimmingly well. Everything I thought I
knew about classroom management has been turned on its ear by making the
decision to work at an inner city school. What would Mr. Feeny do?
Probably something spectacular.
Me?
I flap my arms frantically, and call for help out in the hall.
I hand a tissue out to wipe away tears and hold back my own until after school.
I kick myself because I wanted to walk in with a confidence I have not yet
developed. I tell my kids to take a deep breath and count to ten, as I inwardly
count to twenty. Then I go to the faculty dining room and laugh with my
coworkers and allow myself to breathe for thirty minutes.
I am learning. Sometimes I am miles ahead of my kids.
Sometimes only a chapter. Sometimes, I am
learning by a few frantic page flips ahead of them. Lessons learned: teachers
need to study the vocabulary lists just as much as the students do. Mr. Feeny
probably knew all the vocabulary lists in every orange Sadlier book ever
created. He probably knew exactly what to do when a student stomped out of class.
I am not Mr. Feeny.
I am Ms. T.
And no, I am not perfect. But I am good at what I do, and I
am getting better. Mr. Feeny probably never taught his students Navajo words,
which I have. I never saw him stomp around the classroom pretending he was Grendel
from Beowulf, which I have done (to the amusement of my kids). So every once in
awhile, I am going to lock my keys in my room. I am going to lose a vocab quiz
and maybe even my temper. I am going to have to keep counting to twenty and remembering
to breathe. My speakers will not work on the day I want to show a video, and my
students will continue to laugh at me as I publically battle the smartboard in
my room.
And it is okay that I cannot rock the tweed outfits, or say
something profound every day. What matters is that one day I will find my Corys
and Topengas and Erics and Shawns and I can tell my kids:
“Believe in Yourselves. Dream. Try. Do Good.”
