My Experience as a Teacher

" A teacher? I can't imagine you to be a teacher; you don't even look like one ". Huh? Leesh how must the teacher look like?

I've been hearing remarks like these since the day I announced the big event: "I'll officially be working as a teacher" sometime in September 2004. However, it didn't take me much time to understand what they meant by saying that I lack "the look" of a teacher. It never occurred to me that just the way a model must have the look of a model, the teacher in order to be a good and successful teacher, must have "the look of a teacher" in addition to the other qualifications.

Becoming a teacher was not on my agenda. I was planning to do something else, to continue my studies either to get the masters degree or to start a new major when one day a friend called me saying that they need a new teacher at the school she works at, and she thought that I might be interested since I was still jobless.
"But you know, teaching is completely not included in my plan, and you know perfectly well that I think of teaching as being a very limiting job". I replied.
"But since you haven't decided on what are you going to do next, why don’t you just give it a shot? You may like it". She said.

I found myself on the following day heading to the school, filling a job application, set up a date for an interview appointment, that went smoothly when it took place, then followed by a couple of practical tests, until finally I found myself stuck by accepting the job offer.

I did not expect myself to make it, especially that I did not take it that seriously on one hand, and on the other hand because of the many rivals who applied to that job as well. It was much of a surprise to see the school principal pointing at me, asking me to accompany her to her office where I was told that I am the one who was chosen for the job.

Wow, I passed! Yalla, why not! Even if I didn't like the job, it will be one of the many experiences we go through in our lives. I was very relieved thinking that the difficult part , and here I mean the interview and the tests, was over. Very confident and exited, full of hopes and energy, I started my career as a teacher. Only to discover shortly afterwards that I am such a big loser and that people were right when they told me that I was not born to be a teacher.

"My goodness! Are these humans or devils? Children or monkeys?" I thought to myself only a few days right after I started to give classes. I don't remember that there were such students in our days. I didn't know that the days when the students used to respect and fear their teachers have become history. For these students, to have nice lenient teacher was a gift from heaven, a chance to have some fun during classes and turn the classroom into madraset el moshaghibeen.

I had great expectations, determined to take the students as friends, to come up with interesting creative methods to explain lessons, to find different ways to attract them to the subject and make them love it. But I was not given a chance to.
While I was doing my best to do that, and I couldn't even make myself heard ( A serious problem that a teacher may suffer from is not to have a loud blustering voice), they were busy chatting, playing, telling jokes and laughing, throwing objects under their girlfriends' feet so that they can steal a look at the girls' legs from below their skirts.

I stopped once amid all that tumult, stunned, shocked and disappointed, asking myself: What the hell am I doing here? At that moment I seriously thought of leaving the classroom, go home and never come back again.

I felt frustrated and offended, and I had to do something about it. Recovering from my shock, I had two choices to think about. I either give up and quit, or take the challenge and prove to myself and to the people that I can do it. I can be a successful teacher if I determined to, I can do anything I want with my will, I'm no loser! So, I made up my mind not to be a quitter, to work on it and to make it, and only then I can leave this job but with pride.

So, I decided to change the strategy, to leave my pleasant personality at home, and put on a frowned, strict, and mean mask the moment I enter the school. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but eventually I somehow managed to give the impression of a serious firm teacher. But of course I had no intention to continue consuming myself in this job like that and for so long. As soon as the school year came to an end, I decided to resign. And without explaining or elaborating, I informed the principal that I quit due to "personal reasons".

A few weeks passed after my resignation when someone told the principal about the real reasons that drove me to leave. She asked her secretary to contact me and inform me that she has something to talk to me about. She thought that I left the job because I found another one, or because I'm about to get married or something, but it didn't occur to her that I was thinking that teaching is not the right job for me. When I went to meet her, she told me how everyone faces many difficulties and obstacles when he first starts a new job, and how we should not give up, and that one learns from his faults, and that she absolutely believe that I am a good teacher which made her choose me from all the others who applied to the job, and it is so sad to know that I'm thinking of myself this way and that it saddens her to see me leaving, yada yada yada… El mohem, she managed to convince me to stay. Oh, No, not gain!

So, I returned. But my return was conditional. "I teach KGs, first or second graders only" I asked. "You got what you want" the reply was.

The second year, however, was not less challenging than the first one, for dealing with young kids was not as easy as I thought it to be. It was like starting a new experience all over again.

Throughout these couple of years, I learned a lot, I encountered many experiences, got to know all types of kids and parents. I learned that if I do not like my job I should learn how to like it and how to get acquainted with it, how to work on my deficiencies and develop my character and personality accordingly, how to make this job more interesting and more fun. I was careful not to drag myself into the limited narrow-minded world of pre school teachers. I learned a very important thing, how to raise kids, seriously! I feel that I now have a full idea on how to raise my future kids, I know how I want them to be, what should I do and what should I do not. Haven't I gone through this experience, I wouldn't have learned all these things alone. I learned how to deal with spoiled, disobedient, nervous and all types of kids. That was the full part of the glass, I always tend to ignore the empty one :D

Back to "the look" now, it took me two years to build up the character of a teacher because unluckily I lack the inborn qualities of this character :D. I was not born to be a teacher, remember? Maybe a superstar or a great artist or something hehehe.

I managed to make a strong, serious, strict teacher (yet kind to those who deserve it), out of myself. I managed to have the look that makes the kid tremble knowing that he's in a big trouble. Other teachers even threaten the kids to tell me in case they do anything wrong. I managed to keep things under control and the way I want them to be.

I can say now, in my third year as a teacher, that I am really enjoying it. Ironically enough, one finds his happiness and satisfaction in the place he is about to leave. I'm now spending my last months in the school and in the country, for I have to leave for real "personal reasons" this time.