Ama Lo Que Haces

With every new job you have a learning curve. Every new store, restaurant, or career, you must first figure out what you’re doing before you can become good at it. You train for a period of time, and then after that you’re on your own, ready or not.

For me, I always hate the first few days by myself. Whether in retail, on bar, or as a teacher, I always have the same butterflies in my stomach.

Thankfully, each new job also has the moment where you realize that you know what you’re doing. Usually, after a few shifts I find my rhythm, able to relax knowing that I have things figured out.

As a teacher, this relaxation took me four months to find.

When I first started teaching I was uncomfortable… I’ve never REALLY taught before this experience and so I was way outside of my comfort zone.

I could never tell if class was too hard and I was always worried that I wouldn’t have enough material to fill the time.

My students loved me, but I wasn’t sure they were retaining any English, or even learning anything at all.

Thankfully, every week it got a little bit easier. Lesson plans took less time, and I stopped having to think so much about what my next move would be. As time passed I felt more confident walking into classrooms and was less afraid to ask if my students had questions.

And then, this past week I came to the realization that I finally feel like an actual teacher. Like this is my job. I no longer wonder who would trust me with their education and I can finally explain grammar concepts when asked about them on the spot.

These days I rarely resort to Spanish at the first sign of confusion, and I easily correct students without interrupting the flow of class.

After a month of training and three months of teaching, you could say that this was a relief.

Now, I am still by no means the best teacher out there. Or even one of the best. I still wing the occasional class and brush over questions that I don’t know the answer to, but I’m happy to announce that I’m probably not the worst teacher out there either.

After one semester I feel like I’ve transitioned from Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher to some average teacher that nobody thought to make a movie about. Hopefully in the next five months I make my way towards being as inspirational as Tina Fey in Mean Girls…

*DISCLAIMER: Even though I may finally feel like a decent teacher, I will definitely be pulling some bad teacher moves by showing Christmas movies in class until I’m on vacation. *