hall duty — why it’s hard for ME
I’m starting to write a series of posts and the purpose is…
…to identify the dynamics in my own personal life that contribute to the pressure that I feel as a teacher.
Yes — there are many external dynamics that challenge teachers. BUT I want to write about my unique, personal, internal dynamics that make my teaching duties pressure-filled for ME.
Hall Duty Be Like
They get out of class to wander the halls, watch tik tok, listen to their music, sneak into the bathroom to vape, meet up with their friends. Some try to avoid eye-contact so I might decide to skip questioning them. Some try the friendly-distract-the-teacher method to get me to chat and forget the fact that they are cutting class.
On hall duty…
…I feel afraid.
…I feel threatened.
…I feel vulnerable.
…I feel anxious.
I probably don’t look like I feel those things on the outside. But it is very much part of what I feel on the inside.
I don’t think that every teacher feels afraid on hall duty. But I think it is important for me to honestly recognize that I DO. Among the many factors that cause those feelings is one that I’ll mention in this post.
I am a son of a minister/pastor.
As pastor, my dad was hired by a community of Christian people in order to be their spiritual leader. Growing up, I saw that some pastors stayed at their church for a short time and some pastors stayed for a long time. I deduced that short-term pastors were the losers that the community didn’t end up liking. Perhaps they didn’t perform well enough or didn’t work hard enough to make the people happy. Job security, then, was correlated to the amount that a pastor was liked, esteemed and approved of. And as the oldest son of a pastor, I took on plenty of that pressure. I subconsciously thought that even I, as a child, better perform well because the opinion that the church had of ME and MY behavior would directly reflect upon my dad’s status within the church.
Even though I’m an adult now (and my dad and I live in different states), I still carrying those pressures into my job as a teacher. I often think subconscious, pressure-filled thoughts like, “I better impress those around me.” “I better be well-liked by everyone.” “I won’t have the security that I need unless I perform in ways that please the people around me.”
So how does being a pastor’s son make me feel scared on hall duty?
In order to survive and be secure, I need to be liked. On hall duty, at times I can feel enormous pressure because I have the thought that, “I will never be able to please the students that are walking the halls.” “How can I ever get them to like me if I have to confront them?” I have to ask them: ‘where are you going?’ or, ‘where are you supposed to be?’ or, ‘don’t you need to be in class right now?’” Confronting students will make them roll their eyes at me and get annoyed with me and make them complain about me to their friends. All of that — to the pastor’s kid inside of me — is a terrifying prospect. It’s part of what makes me feel pressure as a teacher.
Stay tuned. In future posts I will share additional, personal dynamics that make things like hall duty pressure-filled for me.
