Finding the Fine Line

“When she looks at me, I feel like her eyes bore into my soul. She doesn’t have to say anything at all, just that look and I know I’m just in trouble.”

Such comments are quite common when it comes to the Witha classroom, years, of course, have shaven off those stronger expressions I have as an educator. I pride myself in being a “strict but flexible” educator. Whatever do you mean????

You might ask, for me it’s pretty simple, it’s strict to ensure processes and a good form of structure is built while flexible is understanding that at times there will be a need to look at it from a case to case basis and take time to understand their backstory [the why to their why]. That’s why I have a free pass system [that’s a story for another day]

Good students in my books are not those who score all A’s in class and are the most participatory but the ones who put in the effort, the ones who want to be here, they have a desire to learn and respect the environment they are in but as always situations like this are not ideal.

You often find students who act out, come late or might even scream at you, but under all those layers, you find that diamond in the rough which reminds me of the story of Rihanna [name changed to protect the student’s progress] who walked into class 1 ? hours late and sadly at the time, there were only 2 students, and her other classmates happened to be a no-show.

“Rihanna, do you know what’s the time now?”

“Yup it’s time for you to teach,” she said.

“Is, it? Well, this is how it is going to go, in the future if you are more than 15 minutes late for my class, there will be no class. Do you understand me?

“Miss, I don’t know if you realize but I pay your salary, so you have no choice but to wait for me.”

“I’m sorry to break it to you, Rihanna- you can’t afford me.

Anyway, I’ll see you for our next class.”

I walked away and for her next class, as you can predict she came late yet again [40 minutes this time], but this time I wasn’t waiting around, I had returned to the staff room. She came to the classroom and found me in my room and begged me to return to the class, I told her it wasn’t going to happen and I would see her tomorrow in class, if she was on time.

Guess what? Next time around, she was on-time and continued to be for that entire semester- she excelled and was one of the best students I had. As she warmed up to me, she told me that she was just frustrated that lecturers kept resigning every few weeks and she was sick of it, why bother attending classes if it was going to end anyway, so she started acting out.

As an educator, it is not always easy, you need to find that fine line between being strict yet being flexible and giving them tough love. A key lesson that I have learned is that everyone has a backstory, understanding that can make a huge difference in how you can truly connect with another person on their journey and it makes a difference to a learner when you really care and want the best for them. Knowing that helps them make a better transition to truly participate in the process but if you are not careful, that same things can get them playing a banjo tune on your head.

If they can come late, they will. They will push you to see how far you can bend and I think that’s a normal human reaction. We all respond and react to people differently and it all depends on how people treat us as well if we know we can come late for this person’s class or training without consequences, chances are we will but if we know that person values his time, we will make an extra effort to be there on time or even early.

How do you run your classes or trainings or even meetings? Have you been guilty of bending things because you know the trainer/teacher/lecturer/manager will let you off the hook, so you sip that latte just a little longer or take that call you know you can answer later? How do you find that balance?

p.s- That incident happened when I first started teaching, I just started my first year, fresh out of university, teaching certificate student.

#soulteaching

#liftasyourise

#withwitha