Important and long-lasting opportunities present themselves to public school teachers several times a day. Opportunities to affect a student's life and future in positive and negative ways. A conceptual connection with your students is critical. What I mean is that even if it's only one thing that connects you to the student, it's enough to push the chances for suceess higher.
That has not been lost on me over the last two weeks as my "struggle" with an aggressive male student came to a head when I had to confront him on an issue of respect. Immediately after "the talk" things calmed down between us. In fact, he has since been a model student and has raised his performance level in class by 200%. His whole demeanor in class, and his modeling of correct and exacting technique, has not gone unoticed by the rest of the class. It has really served to pull everyone together. I am relieved and energized by the results.
Will we have a flawless rest of school year? Most likely not, some issue will come up between us. However, a life-lesson has been learned in the process: We don't have to agree on everything, we just have to find a way to realize how much stronger we are as a team then as adversaries.
Public school teaching is difficult, stressful, and unpredictable. In the end, that doesn't matter as the importance of inspiring, motivating, and sacrificing for, students becomes the only focus. In a world of unliminted opportunity, creative methods must be used to assure the success of our youth...the only future we have.
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