There’s a wonderfully vibrant and friendly dining hall attendant at the college I’m currently living at whose smiles and sincere “How’s the arm today?!” inquiries have left me feeling just a little bit better every time I’ve passed by her. Yesterday, I found out it was the last day I would see her, so I asked her to sign my cast. As she pulled the sharpie away and looked up with a smile, I saw that she wrote “Steph says: be you!” and a hush fell over my soul.
All summer, my grad school professors have been packing my brain with so many teaching moves and classroom management strategies that I’ve begun to use phrases like “do it again” and “no opt out” while asking people if they agree with something by showing me a thumbs up on a daily basis. I’ve become so paranoid and uptight about utilizing these strategies in my summer classroom to prevent behavioral issues that I’ve forgotten what it was like to build a trusting relationship.
Now, that’s not to say that those same professors have not also reminded us that we must also be ourselves in the classroom, but when so much is being thrown at and expected of you, that always seems to come with much less urgency. And that’s truly a shame, because the best thing you can be is you, especially in a classroom. Students, especially teenagers, can see right through you, and they will not trust you if you can’t be yourself with them.
They’re going through a constant struggle to be who they are and who they want to be – a struggle that they don’t realize will last well into their 20s. Therefore, we adults need to be the example. We need to show them that there is no shame in being who you are, even if you don’t quite know who that is.
Every time our professors have told us to “just be you” I’ve been like “well, crap, dude, I don’t know who that is either!” and that is absolutely terrifying. I just referred to myself as an adult in that previous paragraph and a shudder echoed through my entire body…. I’m 25. And I still can’t think of myself as an adult sometimes.
But maybe that’s me. Maybe I’m forever a kid. Maybe I’m always going to be the person trying to find themselves and maybe I’ll never be quite as secure in my own skin as some teenagers already seem to be. As long as I’m not pretending to be anything else in my classroom, that’s ok. My students need to know that it’s ok.
What has never changed is this: I want to make people laugh, even though I’m not always that funny. My favorite musician or band changes on a weekly basis. I love making people feel better. I have an extremely sophomoric sense of humor. I really really really want people to like me. I’m insecure about my body. I love my body. I’m indecisive. I want to have a hand in changing the world. I believe that apathy is the true opposite of love. I’m not sure what I’ll really end up doing with my life.
That uncertainty has led me down an incredible path of self-discovery that has lead to new states, new countries, new friends, new experiences and new knowledge. And I have begun to learn that I may forever be in a constant state of change. The question now is how to teach that same embrace for life to my students, how to prepare them for life outside school, outside Baltimore, outside themselves. There is much to be discovered about the self when you step outside your comfort zone.
