mama3girls-phnig

At heart, I am a kindergarten teacher.

I never actually taught in a classroom, but in all the ways that matter, I am one through and through.

And I don’t mess around with my children.

Not upstairs.
Not downstairs.
Not sideways.

Children know when a teacher is teaching them, and they know when a teacher is using them.

A good teacher may challenge a child.
A good teacher may frustrate a child.
A good teacher may even allow struggle.

But honestly, maybe some of us should just not teach. I love people. I know that people sometimes take jobs because other people expected it of them or they took the simplest path and just needed money.

I cannot tell you how many times, when I was a student at Texas A&M, that I heard the following “Oh, you’re getting an MRS degree.”

Honestly, that’s so rude.

There are some people that God creates who actually find a child’s brain to be worth more than the biggest paycheck they could have been given.

But, I never educated those people. I didn’t want to tell them the secret of why my job would always be better.

I didn’t want them to end up in a classroom.

If you take a job or somebody else is expecting that of you and you don’t truly want that job? You burn out. Good teachers aren’t made— they’re born.

This may be a brutal truth bomb. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong? You may even ask why I know this?

1. Because you don’t make a lot of money teaching.

The joy in teaching is the relationship formed with the student. Ask any good teacher why they don’t like their job. It’s never the student’s fault.

My father was a born teacher. In fact, because he was one of the only male teachers at his school and he was gifted with all kinds of students, anytime his colleagues had a troubled child? They would ask the child if they preferred to go get paddle in the office by the principal or go to Mr. Melenyzer, the art teacher.

Nine times out of 10 they went to Mr. Mel. Nine times out of 10, I wish they would have gone to the principal.

Because my dad‘s form of punishment was making them construct a dunce cap to wear around the school for the day.

While I understand this was a vital teaching tool for teenage boys who were going sideways, it didn’t always make me Mrs. popular.

I digress.

A good teacher does not mess with the center of who that child is. I found this intriguing about my dad because he did not get a lot of pushback from the parents of these teenagers who were going sideways people adored my dad mostly because he whistled in the halls. He was always somebody that could make you laugh and still is.

When I went to go pack up my dad’s classroom on his last day of teaching, I cannot tell you how many grown women came up to me crying. They use these words with me. Who’s going to whistle in the halls?

My dad thought big picture. My dad understood that students need to be taught how to treat people and that every student was different and how they learned.

I chose art for my middle school elective. The art teacher was my father. I remember being so confused in his class because I didn’t know if I should call him dad or if I should call him Mr. Mel like everybody else my dad didn’t offer any words about what name I should call him he allowed me autonomy. My dad has always allowed for my autonomy. It ended up being kind of like Spanish is spoken in San Antonio Texas. It was a mix of dad and Mr. Mel, but what I loved about Mr. Mill is that he allowed my creative expression to show up on the page my favorite lesson that my dad taught was when we had to use oil pastel and listen to music for some reason unbeknownst to me I drew a ballerina in modern dance without a head.

“Jennifer I love your oil pastel. I even love that your modern dancer doesn’t have a head.”

My dad would never have fucked with a child. 

Not upstairs—in the mind, where confusion, fear, and shame can take root.

Not downstairs—in the body, where safety is either protected or violated, where the nervous system learns whether the world is dangerous.

Not sideways—in the social world, where children already pay enough through exclusion, ridicule, comparison, and bullying.

The center matters.

More than curriculum.
More than performance.
More than compliance.
More than whether a child can recite the right answer back to you.

Because learning was never meant to require the destruction of self.

For someone who has worked in court advocacy for children removed, I can tell you that soul’s room the planet who would seek to exploit a child in a school setting. I don’t believe that we should live in the fear of this scenario, but it does exist. 

A child should not have to decode whether they are loved.

They should not have to solve emotional riddles just to feel safe.

They should not have to perform attachment or good grades to maintain access to care.

A teacher’s job is not to confuse a child into growth.

A teacher’s job is to create enough safety that curiosity can emerge.

Safety first.
Then trust.
Then exploration.
Then learning.

That is how real growth happens.

You can stretch a child without shaming them.

You can challenge a child without destabilizing them.

You can correct a child without wounding their center.

That is sacred responsibility.

Kindergarten teachers understand something the rest of the world often forget:

The deepest lessons are usually simple.

You are safe.
Your voice matters.
Mistakes are survivable.

You don’t need to stay in for recess until you get a perfect grade.

Love does not need decoding.

If a lesson requires chronic confusion, fear, or emotional starvation to “work,” then maybe the lesson is not wise.

Maybe the pedagogy is broken.

Because the center of a child is holy ground.

Protect the center.

Everything else can be taught.

And last I checked, children were never meant to pay for their education in the most sacred places below.

They may pay sideways, among those who bully and bruise.

But there should always be someone there to help lift them back up.

A teacher.

Maybe the student occasionally needs a minute to consider the lesson. This is true. But it better not be the same lesson already learned and failed…

No one has time for that. Lean into to strengths. Not failures.

That.

Teach to the child.

That too.

Some students are special outliers. Thank God they’re “cute”.

And sometimes you find a student that no matter what they do wrong you just can’t seem to let them go in your heart.

Maybe there’s a lesson there somewhere—I’m still waiting for the story to finish.