My young friend was upset about her students. She said they make inappropriate comments and the management is not even ready to reprimand them. No body is, no one cares!
She asked me for my suggestion and we picked up our conversation from we we had left years ago.
Why would the management care? The revenue comes from the students and if the school was to complain to the parent it is sure to boomerang.
She has just put in her papers and feels that schools don’t deserve or respect honest, talented teachers like her.
I listened to her and suggested that there is no way she will be able to change the system by stepping out of it. Students are what they are, young and often reckless and usually don’t receive much attention or mentoring from their busy parents. Perhaps this is their vent!
Who is to blame them?
Who can blame the teacher who feels offended and disrespected to the point of deciding to quit teaching altogether. None, of course.
May be it is just enough to treat these as occupational hazards. School teaching is one of the the most rigorous and demanding of jobs but it too has its rewards.
While we closed the conversation, she spoke with a lilt in her voice of her second marriage, her daughter’s happiness and her own joy of good company and some laughter..’. and ‘it feels so right to have someone to care for you’, she added.
Why does society make such a fuss over second marriages ?She mentioned how she was vilified for her efforts to secure her home by friends and relatives but ‘the happiness I have now is mine. I need not explain this to anyone, ‘she smiled.
Come to my new home mam, she said happily.
Stay happy, I said wishing her well.
Talk about sliding doors!
Adhyapika 
4 responses to “A Happy Second Innings”
Wise view of school managers and the student behaviors. Good advice. You are a reliable friend. She probably needed to “vent..”
The only other element that I would suggest she consider is this: does she genuinely like young persons? i.e., does she get energy from being in their presence? do their antics remind her of herself and her friends when they were younger? can she envision her students’ contributions to the future without being overwhelmed by their present flaws?
To be successful with young persons of a certain age, a teacher has to genuinely enjoy being with them. Most students dont like their own misbehaviors, so when they sense that a teacher doesnt t like them as individuals, it only generates further problems.
(Sorry for the mini-lecture. Your conversation brought up many memories.)
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I thought so too Albert and also sometimes we teachers tend to feel that we need to be respected no matter what. Over the years, I have come to a conclusion that what you do is one thing, how the other perceives is something beyond your control…..There is a lot of anxiety among teachers. I wish there was a way to address this.
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Your being a friend and a listener is part of the way. The rest of the way . . . ? (It may be up to the universe, as you say.)
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Hmm true
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