teacher w/o kids

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Home : 2004 : December : 20

teacher w/o kids
By Debbie

Shelli,
What a hurtful thing to say, that a teacher without children is not good enough to teach your children! First you say there are teachers in your school w/o kids who are good teachers, but then you say they aren't
good enough to teach your children because you will never put them in their classes. I am a third year teacher. When I was a first year teacher I taught kindergarten and my mentor had a little boy in our district's preschool who would be in my class the next year. She told me I was fine as a teacher, but I didn't really understand how to be a good teacher unless I had children, so she

was going to put her son in the school district she lived in so he wouldn't have to go through that experience. I can't tell you how much that hurt my feelings. Thinking about it, I still feel bad! It made me feel like I wasn't worth anything, that I was no good to teach just because I wasn't a mom. How should that make other parents feel, that I am only good enough for parents who don't think it matters? Like a post said above, that I am sloppy seconds? No, I don't know what it's like to be a parent. But I do know what it is like to be a teacher. I have been around kids for so long, rich kids, poor kids, kids from different ethnicities, kids of different ages. I know kids. I also understand that the parents in my room have jobs, have lives, have things that happen to them, just like everyone else, even people without kids. Many of my friends have children, my family has children, I know that having children is an added stress in already busy lives. I take that into account with all of my parents. However, just because these men and women have kids, some of them are not parents. They are simply people who procreated. Having children does not make a person a parent. Not having children does not make a teacher a bad teacher. I went to school to be a teacher because I love kids and I want to help them be successful in their lives. I had a parent in my room recently tell me that things were really crazy lately, that they were having some family illness and trying to get Christmas ready, etc. I told her that she was doing a fine job, because her son still came to school on time, still came to school happy, etc., and that being a parent alone would cause her to be busy, that I had yet to experience that kind of busy-ness. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "Are you kidding? You ARE a parent! You have 27 babies with you all day long!" That made me feel really good, that she, as a wonderful parent, would compliment me in such a way. I do feel like a parent some days, especially to those kiddos whose parents are just the people who procreated. I have heard it once described that teachers have to be teachers, nurses, psychologists, social workers, miracle makers and parents. We provide love, security, discipline and education, what every good parent provides. I am not saying I am a parent. I know I am not. Maybe this message isn't making any sense. I realize I am rambling through and probably not making my point. What I am saying is this: I am a teacher. I know how to teach and care for my kiddos in my classroom. That is my job. I am supposed to leave all of their baggage out of it, but that is impossible to do. I care for some of these kids more than their parents. Why don't you look at the whole package of TEACHER, not of PARENT/NON-PARENT? That is what your child needs at school. You are their parent at home.