Teachers are hardwired to be martyrs. It’s like we have some pathological flaw that makes us internalize the failures of our students and feel like any time a kid fails, it’s our fault. Combine that with a confusing series of contradictions from the higher-ups, and you’ve got a recipe for irrational guilt. I’ll just say it: teachers work in a system that is designed to gaslight them and keep them in an eternal state of moral confusion. One day, we’re getting free coffees for Teacher Appreciation Week; the next, we’re sitting in a meeting with admin backing a pissed off parent who doesn’t feel like their child should be asked to redo an assignment on which they cheated. The same kid who says you’re the best coach ever at practice throws you under the bus during class and initiates a power struggle over how stupid learning Latin root words is. It’s messed up.

Then comes the rhetoric about how the kids should be working harder than the teacher. If the teacher feels stressed, if the teacher is talking, the kids aren’t taking responsibility for their own learning. If the kids aren’t responsible for their own learning (which, I guess, entails them Googling anything they want to know for themselves so I won’t hinder their irrepressible yearning for knowledge with my two decades of content area experience…?), it’s my fault. Obviously, this is why they aren’t engaged. Around and around and around we go, and I’m dizzy from it.

Last month, I just wore out. When they talked over me, I started chipperly announcing “Sounds like you are ready to work on your own and don’t need further guidance! Let’s get started!” When they asked me a question, I stopped myself from just answering them and started to ask THEM “Where do you think you can go to find that out?” Instead of correcting their writing, I’d highlight a section, then write some questions so they had to figure out what was wrong with it. Instead of repeating the directions over and over to 15+ kids an hour, I pointed them to Canvas if they didn’t pay attention the first time. It was liberating.

*Before I go any further, I want to emphasize a very important aspect of how I design my classes. I NEVER give a student independent work that I do not think they will be capable of doing independently. If a student truly needs me to sit 1:1 with them to complete a task, that task is not appropriate for that child (maybe due to academic deficit, maybe due to maturity or behavior) and should have been modified or accommodated. I’m not talking about turning my back out of anger and saying “f–k you” to their questions AT ALL. This is about teaching them to learn about logical consequences and problem-solving. Now we can go on!

Learned helplessness is a real bitch. It wrecks the kid’s self-concept and the teacher’s sanity. I’m a Gen X-er, so I can say it; Gen X parents largely suck. As parents, it’s been easier to repeat ourselves 8,000 times with the patience of Job and to give our little Ashleys and Jacks whatever they want so we don’t have to listen to them whine or interact with them after a long, soul-depleting day at our own crappy jobs. Our kids are in high school now, and a bunch of them are HOT MESSES. I understand how this happened. Boomer parents (our parents) sucked in a whole different way, and we wanted to do better. Oops.

I had an epiphany. I’ve been Gen X momming my students.

Daaaaamn.

For the first few weeks, teaching them how to figure stuff out and making them accountable for figuring stuff out if they ignored me the first time was brutal. So. Much. Whining. But…the tide is turning. I’ve written before about concierge education and its unsustainability. It hasn’t been pretty, but they’re figuring it out. The solution has been both really simple and really hard. Honestly, it’s oftentimes easier in the short term just to give them what they want in the classroom (the answer to a question they could find for themselves, repeating directions after they screwed around on their phone when you went over it with the class), but this is, in the long term, the worst thing I can do for them. I see them improving their habits and their ability to problem solve, and I feel far less batshit crazy. And, instead of reading the same directions out loud 20 times, I’m actually sitting with kids and…

TEACHING.

I have a new personal mantra in my classroom: “Back the f–k off.”

Keywords: teaching, pedagogy, classroom management, independent student, life skills, study skills, SECD, discipline