Being a parent

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Home : 2001 : July : 9

Being a parent
By Julianne

I had a teacher say those exact words to me during my "first" career. We were in the middle of a protracted meeting about her ADHD son which was NOT going well. At one point she fumed "Wait until you have children. You'll
change your mind then!" I told her she was wrong.
Well, she wasn't really so wrong. Once I had my own family I did see things differently. But I wonder now if that was more because I grew up a great deal during the years I was away from the classroom raising my family. (I went back when my youngest son was in 2nd grade.)
Some of the real changes I saw in myself that I can only

attribute to my children:
I don't expect every child to learn the same way. I know this is something teachers say they understand, but having children of my own forced me to acknowledge that it is a truth. I try very hard to adjust my expectations to accomodate different learning styles. This kind of flexibility is something I don't see as much in some childless teachers.

I accept the fact that little children are dirty, noisy and uncivilized by nature. They will wipe their noses on their sleeves, spit on the playground and scream when they are chased. When I had no children of my own I assumed that if they were raised "right" they would not have any of these disgusting behaviors. I was wrong. It's our job as adults to civilize children. They don't come that way. And criticizing them or their parents is wrong.

Finally, I learned that children have lives out of school that we know nothing about. We seldom know if a child is living with alcoholism or drug use, whether their grandmother is ill or if their father loses his job. We should know these things, but very often a child or his parents will keep this kind of information from us. So I don't assign as much homework and I make allowances for children who can't seem to get it done. I talk more carefully to their parents, trying to determine if there is something going on that we might need to know about.

All of these changes could come about in the course of a childless teacher's career. I know plenty of dedicated, intuitive, childless teachers. I can only speak for myself. I learned this stuff because I had a family. Baptism by fire! I know it would have taken me much longer by another route.