I Taught for a Year. Here are the 7 Most Important Things I Learned.
Lessons Beyond the Curriculum
On a drowsy afternoon in October 2022, a good friend of mine and I made a pit stop at a coffee shop. While my order was brewing, he put down his windshield and nodded to his right. “You should check that place out.”
It turned out to be a new branch of a private school chain named The International School of Babel. He knew I'd been doing private English lessons for years in my spare time. The language is not well taught here in Libya. People have strong accents, and the flow of their mother tongue tacks onto a foreign one.
“Why not?” I replied, already dressed well enough for the occasion. That same afternoon, I walked into the interview room, and a lady asked me a couple of questions.
“What’s your education?”
“Junior high school dropout.”
You’d think that was the end of the interview, but the questions kept coming. My experience as a private tutor, coupled with good first impressions, landed me a call a few days later. I started on October 18th, teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Little did I know what the next 9 months of my life had in store for me.
It was difficult, chaotic, and overwhelming at times, but the lessons I learned were priceless.
Here are the best ones.
1. Responsibility Makes Life Better
I used to be afraid of being a father.
The thought of having that much influence over an innocent little baby—that can’t take its eyes off me—terrified me to no end. The questions I’d be asking myself with no clear answer were endless. But lost in my worry, I failed to see the flip side of the trade-off.
If you sit down with a parent and ask them, “What was it like to have kids?” they’ll tell you all about the sleepless nights and every burden that could come with parenthood. It’s not a full-time responsibility; it’s a life-long one. But they’ll tell you all of this with a yearning glimmer in their eyes, as if they want to go back and do it all over again.
How come?
What may go unmentioned is the joy of seeing your children learn, grow, and prosper. The connection you build with them is one-of-a-kind, and it’s hard to put into words. I got to see a glimpse of it halfway through my short teaching journey.
I was called upon to be a tutor in an after-school program for a different branch of Babel. There, after I was done with my classes, I’d spend two hours with a small group of students, helping them with homework and patching out their blind spots in the curriculum. They were 8 students, ranging from 1st to 6th grade.
When you teach big classes, it’s easier to detach yourself from them and focus on work. But when you spend that amount of time with such a small group, you build a more intimate connection. People who had private tutors for years would equate them with motherly and fatherly figures, and it was no different for me.
For those two hours every Sunday through Thursday, their pains and joys became my own. And despite feeling exhausted by the end of the day, it always felt worthwhile. I started to get just as sad as they did when it was time to depart and go home.
One student in particular, a lovely 1st-garde girl, was my favorite. During the last few weeks I tutored her, she’d ask for hugs when I tell her to start with her homework.
I wasn’t only afraid of being a father; I was also afraid of having a daughter. It seemed easier to raise a boy. But after tutoring that little girl, and going through the ups and downs of helping a kid navigate the new challenges of academia, I realized at the end of it that I want to have a daughter, RIGHT NOW.
In the end, I realized that the weight of responsibility as a father, much like that of a tutor, is accompanied by the sweetest fruits of love, growth, and cherished memories. Yes, it’s hard and scary, but the journey couldn’t be more worth it. It was the most meaningful job I ever did.
2. Boundaries are Everything
I think we all had a teacher who never had class problems. Everyone is quiet and respectful in their presence, even the rowdiest students. The second they entered a classroom, you could hear a feather drop.
One time I made a visit to a class I didn’t teach because of the noise they were making. As soon as I opened the door, everyone fell quiet, and in my head I thought, “Wait a minute, my classes don’t do this.” It’s because I made it clear through my behavior that I allowed a certain level of misbehavior.
Had I been more firm from the start, things would’ve been different. But as I had to find out, for kids (and some adults), boundaries are easy to form but hard to change.
It wasn’t too late. With time and repetition, I made sure to establish proper boundaries with my students. One crucial component was necessary, and that was consequences. They didn’t need to be harsh, and they didn’t need to be used every time, but they needed to be there.
I didn’t want my students to resent school or myself. One of the reasons I dropped out was because I had a bad time with a teacher who hated everyone.
Regardless, just writing the name of the student misbehaving on the board was a massive step towards a more quiet classroom. But eventually, you need to show them the consequences are real.
Tell them loud and clear what is allowed, what isn't, and why it’s prohibited in a way they can understand (refer to the next point), and uphold your boundaries. Every step is crucial. And trust me, this process is much less painful than trying to quiet down a messy classroom. You owe it to yourself and every student in there to keep order responsibly and maintain healthy boundaries.
3. Not All Kids See the World The Same
We all go through 3 stages where we see life a certain way.
A. Raging psychopaths who want what they want at all costs:
Your kid doesn’t care that it’s 3 a.m. and that you’re tired and have work in a few hours; they want to be held NOW. They don’t care if you tell them not to touch the stove, but they will after getting their finger burned.
Kids see the world through simple cause and effect. If I touch the hot stove, it’ll hurt. If I give my sibling some of my candy, he’ll give me some of his. But the world is too big to navigate like this. There are millions of experiences to be had, and this approach is simply too inefficient. As such, in our preteens and adolescence, we gradually grow into the next stage.
B. Professional negotiators that bargain for everything
Instead of categorizing the world step-by-step, we start to see things through more abstract lenses. All fire is dangerous, not just the one in the kitchen. If I share with my siblings, they’ll give back. If I tell my parents the truth, I won’t be punished. And if I participate in the class, the teacher will be pleased.
The problem that eventually arises at this stage is that you can’t bargain for certain things in life. You can’t buy love and respect. Those things have to be given out. But unfortunately, this is the place most people are stuck. This whole idea is a spectrum, and most of us lean towards those transactional relationships.
Some people are very good at them, too. They learned how to bargain to get what they want, be it money, intimacy, or what have you.
C. Adults that understand meaningful things in life require to be given unconditionally
There’s an inherent risk to doing things out of principle. Unconditional love and respect aren’t always reciprocated. But only through taking such a risk can you forge a meaningful life.
I mainly taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Most of my students were at the transactional stage, where there had to be clear consequences to influence their behavior. But my 8th grade students were different.
They understood that misbehaving is disrespectful, and even if it was boring, they chose to do what seemed like the right thing. This is what made 8th grade my favorite class. They knew they were knocking on the doors of adulthood and had to start doing what was right because it was right.
This simple concept is what also made my 7th graders tone down their shenanigans. During the 2nd semester, things got pretty bad on multiple occasions, so I sat them down and explained to them (in simpler terms) what it meant to grow up from this perspective and why it’s important; how life will teach them through painful experiences that their ways won’t work for them. And I related it through some stories to hammer in the point.
It made the rest of the year a breeze, both for me and other teachers. They wanted to start acting like adults; they just didn’t know this was what it meant.
Ultimately, we gradually grow in and out of these stages through experiences and pain. We have to touch the hot stove once, and we have to mistakenly bargain for something that can’t be bargained for, then watch it fall apart. But it’s helpful to keep this perspective in mind when dealing with students. Know when to appeal to principles, and know when to employ transactions.
4. Kids Want to Have a Good Relationship With You
If I had to choose the single most important lesson from my year of teaching, it’d be this.
Your students want to like you; they want to look up to you; they want you to teach them cool things, even if you’re an unpleasant, harsh teacher. They want to impress you and entertain you. Sometimes academia isn’t their preferred way of doing so.
They have the purest intention. Even the ones that may appear to not like you. Some kids have odd ways of communicating with the world.
I taught 1st grade in the international sector briefly, and some of the kids seemed to dislike me for no apparent reason. But I wasn’t great at dealing with an entire class of 1st graders, so the responsibility was delegated to someone else. From there on out, during any chance they could get, the same students that wanted me gone would come running to me, asking me to come back.
They didn’t want me to go; they just wanted to grab my attention for a moment, and I made the mistake of reacting to it. I established the feedback loop.
Either way, it was my responsibility to get it right. Their hearts were always in the right place. That’s the one comfort you can take in teaching kids; they may misbehave and give you headaches, but their intentions will always be pure. They will always give you the opportunity to build something great with them.
Things can get a little murky as they grow older and the world has its way with them, but even for most adolescents, they’d much rather have a good relationship with you.
5. Treat Every Class Like Play
Isn’t school boring?
It’s not an environment we thrive in. Sitting in a classroom and having someone dumb down an already simple book for about 30 kids isn’t exciting.
But even within the constraints of a classroom, there was still something I could do.
I started to construct my lessons more elaborately. I knew which students were going to respond to what. Not only that, but I knew what clicked with them. I started voicing characters from the book, putting more omph into group work, holding little competitions with point systems, letting them finish my sentences, and employing more enthusiastic body language.
It was like conducting an orchestra.
All of this did two things: 1. it made English classes the highlight of our day, and 2. it completely and utterly drained me.
I could not do this 13 times a week. Neither could my students. Sometimes you just have to show up and do less than spectacular. But what’s good about this is that even if you don’t go above and beyond every class, your bare minimum improves, and the newfound perspective and attitude your students develop do some of the lifting for you.
6. Remember the Times you were a Kid at School, too
When your students misbehave, get into trouble, miss their homework a lot, and just don’t act as perfectly as you wish them to, remember the times you were in their shoes.
When I was in 6th grade, I had to hitchhike to school more than a 12-year-old should. And sometimes you just get unlucky and arrive late. I dreaded Tuesdays because I was usually late to the class of a teacher who could not understand my circumstances no matter how much I explained them, and the ensuing punishments only made me want to drop out more, week-in, week-out.
Your students can be late or rude, not because they hate you but because they had a rough day or didn’t sleep right. It’s almost always an honest mistake. They may struggle with homework because their parents always did things for them, stifling their independence. You never know.
They’re kids, still trying to find their footing in the world, much like you. You’re there to help them, not make sure they’re perfect.
You don’t go somewhere for 5–6 hours a day to perform; you go there to develop and grow.
The overachieving, gifted kids need someone to be proud of them for trying, not just for overachieving. The soft-bullies need someone to teach them to communicate their feelings and connect with their classmates better. The quiet kid needs someone to check on them and make them feel heard and seen. The shy students need someone to give them a chance to participate and not be overshadowed by the loud, confident kids.
Be there for your students.
7. Smell the Roses; They Won’t Live Forever
Teaching was the first job I ever had where I felt like I wanted to stay and do more. I felt right at home every day. And the only reason I stopped is that it doesn’t pay as much as writing. Working with good people fuels me to no end, but I had to go in another direction for now.
I wish I had taken my time to enjoy it more. I was so worried about tomorrow’s classes and troubles, until the day I met my favorite students for the last time, and I didn’t even realize it. To call it bittersweet would be an understatement. It breaks my heart that I won’t see those kids again.
I’ll forever cherish those days.
Thank you for reading!
