Do remember your first year as a teacher? Do you remember the hopes and dreams you had for your classroom and connecting with students and at the same time the fear of not being enough? I certainly do!

Too often we instill the fears of chaos and noise in beginning teachers and teach them to control the class and ensure that they retain power over kids to keep things running smoothly. I don’t know about you but the never smile until Christmas rule never felty very authentic or like a great way to create a warm inviting culture. What if we spent more time focused on connecting with kids and creating a space where they feel safe and valued instead of demanding compliance?

Sheena Carmela Juliano is currently in her final year at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. In this guest post she shares her hopes and experiences that highlight the impact of connecting with students. I love this story and hope you do too.

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I love helping people learn and I love how they change me. Each person I have ever helped holds a special place in my heart. However, the one that made me feel so sure about becoming a teacher was the biggest surprise.

I met S when I was placed in his 5th-grade class for my first semester in the field. Personally, I’ve always envisioned myself more suited to teaching maybe 1st or 2nd. I have these visions of the cute little class photos I’d create with them. I’d be a mother hen and they would be my little chicks. I’d be a crayon box and they’d be my crayons. Except you don’t do this kind of stuff with 5th graders.  

So, I was afraid. I was afraid they would disrespect me. I was afraid they would be taller than me. I was afraid they wouldn’t listen to me. When I first met S, he immediately made two of my fears come true. S was shorter than me, so it wasn’t that. 

I was assigned to work with S  because he needed help with Math. He was witty, energetic, Mr. Wala‘au. As an observer, it may be entertaining, but as a teacher, I saw it as a potential hazard. I’d been warned that kids like S usually open the doorway to more behavior management worries. As much as I tried to keep that door closed by asserting my authority from the start, S definitely started to pick the locks.

The more we worked together, the more “comfortable” he got. His once careful, first-impression obedience turned into a mischievous and persistent non-compliance. 

“Stop talking during directions, S. 

Get back to work, S. 

What are you supposed to be doing right now that you aren’t doing, S?”

He’d just smirk and crack another joke. I tried to apply what I’ve learned about behavior management from my methods courses, yet nothing seemed to work:

Positioning myself closer to him so that he could get the hint? He didn’t get it.

Publicly highlighting another student doing what I wanted them to do? Not quite effective.

Directly giving him a look? Effective, but not long-lasting. 

My efforts were futile. His behavior persisted while I became more and more frustrated. Honestly, I started to fear coming to class. Though the other 5th graders contributed to the better days, the anticipation of another draining power struggle was kept me under the covers a little longer in the morning. The fire that fueled my eagerness was flickering. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what I was doing wrong. 

Then one day came a spark. 

We had an art block that required the kids to create metal dolls of themselves. They had to twist a wire a certain way to form the body parts. While the instructor did her best to model it, some of the kids were still stuck. While I went around assisting the best I could, S and a couple of other students were goofing off during the demonstration. Typical S, I thought. I was about to segue over to the other side of the classroom when I felt a shy nudge behind me.

“Um, Miss Juliano. Can you help me make mine, please?”

Cue record scratching sound effect. 

Did S really ask me, politely, to help him? The tired, fed-up-with-his-behavior part of me wanted to bring up how he should have been paying attention. But I just couldn’t let that part win. 

“Of course! Let’s do it together.”

I’ll admit I felt a little nervous as S and I worked together to mold his metal figurine. The flickering light within me held its steady flame. As S thanked me for helping create his doll, I also thanked the kinder part of me for speaking instead.

In the days that followed, S began to open up to me a little more. What used to be “I don’t have my math book today,” started to sound like “I forgot it at dad’s house because I slept over at mom’s last night.” The unsigned planners and progress reports were given exceptionally later due dates because “mom left for a work trip and I stayed with grandma this weekend.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that kids weren’t just kids. Kids were actual people. Mini versions of people, going through life the same way as everybody else. The same way that I was. 

From that point forward, my view of all of the students in that 5th-grade classroom changed dramatically. They weren’t just kids that couldn’t behave themselves or who were acting out on purpose. These were kids whose lives I knew nothing much about once they walked out of the classroom door.

I wanted to give up on S because I thought there was just no way for me to connect to him, but I was wrong. I let the frustration and insubordination hold me back from being sympathetic and open-minded. I let the anger and high expectations restrict the warm and understanding parts of me. 

I let the door that I tried so desperately to shut as a form of authority in the classroom act as a barrier between me and the students. 

As teachers, we already know that this profession is far from uniform. We try to plan everything out as much as we can, but in the end we never truly know what our time with each of our students will bring. Why not hold out a little longer and give them a chance?  Why not spend the time getting to know our students for their real selves and connecting to them as people instead of looking at them as the unwanted behaviors we respond to? 

Sheena Carmela Juliano is a future elementary teacher, currently in her final year at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She looks forward to laughing with friends and family, living life to the fullest, and one day conducting silly themed classroom photos with her own students. (Example: she would be a crayon box and her students would be the crayons).