I shouldn’t have become a teacher when I did. I was way too young, full of my own trauma, and desperate to get out of debt. I worked hard as hell, often over 70 hours each week, but I don’t think I was actually a quality teacher. I was focused on “cute” lesson plans, running committees, starting outreach clubs, and trying to fit into the social clique of teachers.
When I look back, I don’t know if anyone became better at the subject matter because of my instruction. I know that I treated them well and cared a lot, but my job was to help them succeed academically. I don’t think I did that. I think they all would have been better if someone else had been hired at each of my teaching jobs I had.
I used to feel like I had imposter syndrome. But what if I really was an imposter, it was one of the times that you really weren’t meant to be where you were.
I work in a different field now. I see the difference in myself after decades of therapy and reflection. I’m happier.
But I worry about those kids that I was supposed to help get on grade level. What if they had years in a row of teachers like me?
Might delete this. Ugh, to be honest with yourself is really hard.
EDIT—I just want to thank you all for your kind words. I felt shame when I first wrote this post, but now I feel a kind of closure. Thank you all for taking the time to comment. Truly.
Comments
Your fine. The kids are fine. You are but one chapter in a child’s life. Sorry to say that so bluntly but…a child will have lots of learning resource opportunities in its life. It’s up to the kid to excel in this life. Just my 2 cents 🤷♀️
Hey man, don’t beat yourself up. We’ve all been there. Yeah u messed up but ur growth is wholesome af. U genuinely cared, that’s half the game. Plus, u’ve recognized where u messed up, n that’s gold dude. Fixing past mistakes isn’t possible, but we can lighten the load for peeps behind us. Maybe u can’t undo the past, but ur future’s right here, ready to be written. Big up for being real bruh and remember, mistakes make us human, growth makes us stronger. ✌️💯🔥
It sounds like you’re being really hard on yourself, OP. The fact that you care this much about your former students already shows you weren’t the failure you think you were. Every teacher leaves something behind, even if it’s not obvious right away. Give yourself some grace you did your best with what you had at the time.
I’ll be honest with you the fact that you still care so much about those kids probably means you didn’t do as bad as a job as you think you did. When I look back at my school years there were teachers who were downright abusive and cruel to a lot of students and even though they taught the subject ‘well’ they did more damage to the students drive to learn things in the future because they killed the excitement around learning and education. Being a mediocre but kind teacher might have been better than a ‘good’ but inattentive/cruel teacher. Who knows maybe your class is the reason some students decided to keep going to school. Some of my classmates turned out to be conspiracy theorists others fell for the college being a scam pipeline and I truly think that if we would have had kind teachers who were not that great at teaching the subject material maybe they would not hate education and academia as much as they ended up doing. I’m sorry for an entire paragraph but I hope you don’t beat yourself up over this.
You taught kids math or spellking or sth for a couple of years. Even if you taught it all wrong, you didn’t trauamtize them for life.
Good teachers will stick with you for life. Bad teachers (who yell and scream) will aswell. But the okay ones will not be remembered for very long. And you sound like an okay one at worst.
bet some of ur students still remember u in a good way tho
You treated them well and cared a lot. That’s enough, really. Don’t feel bad.
Yours was like one class out of five a day.
Honestly. Just being nice/kind/caring is enough to make a big difference in some kids’ lives.
I think there was a Twilight Zone episode about a guy who thought he’d been a failure as a teacher, and he probably was kind of mediocre overall, but he had reached a number of his students who’d gone on to do something great, like saving another person’s life in war and died themselves in the process, but their ghosts come back to thank him for what he did as a teacher, that made a difference in their lives and the lives of others.
You can’t know who you helped, I bet there were some, even if you didn’t see it.
Unless you were teaching at the graduate level, don’t worry about it. Barely any teachers meaningfully infuse students with the material. The best teachers are the ones that make any effort to engage their students, whether it’s through their own energy or outside of classes. Sounds like you did that, which means students probably generally paid attention in your class and so got more out of it than most classes.
Maybe I’m pessimistic but I think the best most teachers can hope to do in 99% of situations is just keep the kids mildly engaged in the subject enough that they don’t dread walking into class and will have an open mind for it next year.
Having a teacher who cares a lot isn’t very common. Congratulations you have a huge heart full of empathy. I promise you, the kids are alright 👍🏼.
As a teacher, I will say you probably do have imposter syndrome. Most teachers, even some of the best, do.
Also, I see horrible teachers who think they are great all the time. They sit up front and lecture as the students sit quietly and daydream. The content is way above their heads, and there is no interaction. The teachers also don’t build relationships with the students, so it is literally a waste of their time.
I’m sure your students learned something, and even if they didn’t, at least they knew an adult cared about them. They will remember that far longer than the Pythagorean theorem.
i think you’re too focused on only one aspect and on a whole lot of “what ifs”.
you mention you treated them well and that you cared a lot as well as created/ran outreach clubs. those are all extremely important and valuable things that another teacher may not have offered! as someone that came from a harsh home environment school was my getaway from that and the years that i had harsh or uncaring teachers only made my life more miserable. the teachers i remember and am grateful for now were not the ones with the best lesson plans but the ones that lead with kindness and took the time to check in on me.
for example, my grade two teacher noticed my lisp and pushed the school to enroll me with the speech therapist. the school didn’t want to of course, it was a public school and i was rather young so they tried the “she might grow out of it” angle. thankfully my teacher rode hard for me and i was enrolled. now as an adult i can speak properly! that same teacher noticed my love of reading and would constantly bring me books from her own collection. i was reading 1-2 chapter books a night and so she had my reading level tested… i was reading at the level of an 8th-9th grade student. later on that same teacher became our schools librarian so i would see her each morning as i returned and checked out my books. the year prior when she was my teacher i rarely went to the library because she loaned me so many books from her own collection so it was a huge comfort to still connect with her over books. my parents donated money to the library every christmas and she would call me into the library to pick what books she would order for the schools collection using that money. it meant a lot to me how much she cared and the ways that she saw me.
my point is that this teacher noticed me, she cared, she paid attention to the things i enjoyed and didn’t write me off the way so many adults tend to do to children. she made a huge difference in my life and i am so so thankful for her. looking back i don’t think of her lesson plans, i don’t think i could remember them even if i tried and that applies to pretty much every teacher i’ve ever had! i simply remember their kindness, their encouragement, and the happy memories. or if the teacher was a mean, cruel, or boring teacher then i remember that about them instead.
at the end of the day academic success lays partially on the teachers and partially on the students. it’s certainly not all on you! i also want to remind you that students are going to learn best in an environment where they feel safe, welcome and comfortable. it sounds like you provided that space for them. now imagine if it had been another teacher, maybe that teacher had amazing lesson plans but maybe they were also harsh and uncaring. maybe children that were already struggling at home fell further between the cracks in her classroom or the kids with anxiety stopped showing up. you can play the game of what if but that game goes both ways.
it’s perfectly natural to learn and grow over the years, if anything i would be concerned if you looked back and didn’t see things that you could have improved upon. even just the fact that all these years later you are still thinking of your past students, worrying about them and wishing them well tells me that you did just fine by them when you were their teacher, so don’t beat yourself up <3
One of my favorite teachers in high school taught Spanish, he would always say “fake it til you make it”. I was able to get by with 3 years of high school Spanish in Spain and Mexico so I would say he did a good job. It’s easy to be critical of things you think you should do differently focus on yourself and enjoy the less stress. I’m glad you’re happy now, and the kids are fine.
Senior year of highschool (my 14th n final year of a Catholic school education) my religion teacher looked me dead in the eyes and told me, “The best part of you ran down your father’s thigh.” So I’d say if you’ve matched or bettered that then I’d say yeah, you’re a bad teacher lol
You probably weren’t a bad teacher. Idk what grade you taught or what subjects you covered, but I’ve had some pretty shit teachers growing up, and what made them shit was that they didn’t fucking care whatsoever. They weren’t nice, they weren’t helpful, they couldn’t keep their class in order, etc. If you actually were as involved as you’ve stated, even if you might’ve not been perfect, I can’t imagine any of those kids are looking back with anything other than positivity regarding having you as a teacher.
Like working 70 hours a week? That’s more effort than any actual bad teacher would ever put into their job. I think you’re worrying way too much about your role in these kids’ future, because it takes a supremely fucked up teacher to do that level of harm on a person. Don’t be too hard on yourself <3
I use to party like a rockstar and one day I turned around and somehow ended up a Sunday school teacher. One of the boys was having a tough time, heading to a dark lifestyle and I knew he had no male role models, so I stepped up to mentor him, show him right and wrong and how to be a man. This lasted a few months and then he started committing crimes and going to juvy and now jail. I don’t think I was a bad mentor but I should’ve stuck it out longer cuz he is FFFFF’D UP now.
> I know that I treated them well and cared a lot
That’s really all there is to being a good teacher imo. The rest is really just nice to have
Late to the party, but I remember having 2 biology teachers and one was kind and I put more effort learning for her classes than I did for the other who seemed to have a grudge against me, I looked forward to the kind teachers classes a lot more and succeeded more in them. Kindness goes a long way
Don’t worry about it. The reflection is good— it indicates empathy and concern for others, and those are good traits in people. But the fact is that you did this thing, you worked with people (kids) and did your best. This is the case for any teacher; I shouldn’t speak for everyone, but everyone has to start somewhere. I’ve felt this way about my old kids/students, and have wondered if I will ever get the chance to support them in the future as a kind of penance. If I don’t/cannot, the idea remains that you did not 100% do a horrible job. There was most likely good in your experience with others, and it’s fine. Good luck with your current career and future endeavors, and it is/will be alright.
My kids kinder teacher wasn’t really great at teaching my children imo but she was kind and loving and it didn’t set them back. I’d much rather it that way than a mean teacher that could teach them physics at 5.
I always remember fondly the teachers who were kind than who were subject matter experts. Let’s face it, there are so many variables that you probably did the most amazing job by making children look forward to their class with you. Most subject matter experts were and are douchebags
Reminds me of one of my professors. He had horrific ratings on rate my professor(less than 2/5), played favorites and I felt he was always slighting me when I would ask for help. At least you acknowledge what you did. Do better in the future.
Don’t beat yourself up i had a terrible kindergarten and first grade teacher didnt learn to read til the 2nd grade. I’m doing just fine and graduated college with honors in Accounting.