As a fantastic and unexpected conclusion to my time here in Lidköping, I’ve been handed one last teaching stint to wrap up the final months of the school year. I love being back, I love seeing my old students (who are now graduating!!), and I love meeting and interacting with new ones. But man, I’m reminded of why teaching is so hard. Not because the work load is so heavy or because all of the demands placed on you are so stressful. It is and they are, but I find a way to deal with it and remain joyful. No, teaching is hard because it gives you a forecast of what the future is going to be like. Although there are a number of students who give me tremendous hope, there are even more who give me great cause for concern. These students don’t have delinquent tendencies or bad morals - in fact, they often come from good families with solid values. But for some reason, they are unable to cope. With expectations, with pressure, with life - I don’t even know.
I feel like I sound like a really old person when I say this, but when I was in school, I don’t remember ever hearing of a fellow student getting out of performing a speech or making a presentation or handing in an assignment simply because they had anxiety or stress or whatever. When I was in school, we got the assignment done, even if it meant standing in front of the class feeling really nervous and afraid of totally bombing it. Because everybody had to do it. It was a part of life.
A few years ago I wrote a post called “On parenting” (http://annikagreco.blogspot.se/2014/01/on-parenting.html) in which I decried the deplorable lack of discipline I was seeing in my students (I may have ranted just a bit…). A couple of years later this hasn't changed, but I've noticed the level of stress and anxiety among students has increased (at least in Sweden it has become a psychological phenomenon).
Case in point: One of my groups was assigned a speech to perform in front of the whole class with today being the due date. Now I know it's scary and that some people have serious anxiety about getting up in front of a big group and delivering a speech. I get it. I’ve been that person. But it’s part of life! No matter what kind of job you have in the future or what kind of activities you engage in, you will at some point or other have to hold your own in front of other people. A classroom setting is a perfectly soft way to ease into it. But kids these days wig out, they buckle under pressure, they get anxiety attacks and can’t cope with the thought of not being absolutely perfect. God forbid they should fail to get the highest grade or have to display their nervousness for all to see. Of course I'm generalizing, but clearly there is something seriously wrong with the way kids are being raised these days. I am very concerned.
Which makes me want to go on another rant:
Parents. You have got. To toughen. Up. Your kids. And when I say “toughen up,” I don’t mean make them sleep out in the cold or beat them with a stick or send them to boot camp (though God knows that could be useful). I mean teach them to handle disappointment, to overcome their fears, to manage their time and prioritize. This is not the teacher’s job. This is your job. Teach them self worth and confidence. Encourage them to aim high and go big, but let them know that they will always be loved because of who they are and not what they accomplish. Even as I write this I feel like it sounds soooo cliché, but clearly there is a disconnect somewhere. Here I’ve got kids who have had six class periods to work on this speech (six!!!) and were given the deadline in good time. And still, several of them just couldn’t seem to get their act together and pleaded with me this morning to let them go next time when I’d already made it clear that because of time constraints we needed to have as many go today as possible. Now I will have to rearrange my schedule in order to give them a chance to give their speech outside of regular class time. I shake my head.
Teaching is really hard because it gives you a forecast of what the future is going to be like. If we have a generation who can’t cope with pressure, what does that say about the future of our economic system? Of our politics? Of our social and moral fabric? Young people who can’t cope with pressure become insecure leaders who can’t cope with conflict. If you read the history books, you’ll see that an insecure leader is just about the most dangerous thing out there. Start connecting the dots.
