I Am a Teacher, and I Was a Terrible Student
To be fair, I had some terrible teachers.
Every time I have difficulties with a student, my mind takes me back to when I was a student. Here is karma kicking you.
In high school Latin class, I climbed out of a ground-floor window during class just to see if I could get away with it. I hadn’t thought ahead. That window opened onto a kind of courtyard with classrooms all around. Everyone but my Latin teacher saw it. He was very inattentive, but he was really sweet about it when he found out.
And that’s not even close to the worst of it. I made jokes at the expense of my Korean teachers at the Defense Language Institute. I bullied classmates in a college poetry writing class. I was inattentive and hostile with some college teachers. I ignored instructions. I didn’t read feedback. I didn’t communicate grievances. I had a chip on my shoulder.
Some of it can be explained by my family history. I was a product of a broken home and immature, irresponsible parents. My parents divorced when I was around 7, and neither of them was a decent role-model. We moved around a lot, and I endured some pretty extreme poverty and abuse. I wasn’t able to transcend that until I was much older.
Some of my bad behavior as a student was warranted, especially in college. I was frustrated by…
