Wash the Shit Shield, Change the World

After a near constant screamed stream of profanities, thrown objects, and flipped furniture, I retreated quietly to my car, a little shell-shocked by the unexpectedly volatile day. I thanked my lucky stars for the best piece of advice I’d ever been given, only then fully appreciating the value of it.

“Remember to put on your shit shield at the beginning of each day,” this warm and smiling lecturer gently warned the crowd of student teachers, “And always wash it off at the end. You’ll need to go in fresh the next day.”

Wash off your shit shield. Alright.

I took the drive to process all that had happened. The absence of my supervising teacher, replaced by a new casual. The coin that clanged loudly on the pole behind me as it whizzed past my ear. The laughter in the staffroom about a bin being set on fire and wondering if there was a reason for the blasé response. But most of all, my mind turned to the new student, freshly expelled from her last school and seemingly hell bent on lashing out at everything and everyone around her. I processed my actions, then I processed hers, and I took that time to choose a new strategy, one that might just work.

When I returned home after this, my first day of my first prac, I took a breath, took a shower, and washed the day away. I allowed all the fear, frustration, and sadness to rinse off of me, so that when I stepped out I could breath the fresh air of someone at peace.

Tomorrow will be different.

In a lot of ways it was no different to the one before. I was still alone in this, again without the supervisor who regularly took these classes. Instead I was armed with a new substitute, one who was more vocal about why this school might have such a hard time holding onto to casuals.

There was one significant difference though, I had a theory about one of these students and I had a plan. I’d been told by a more experienced teacher that all some students really needed was a place to feel safe, a place to feel normal. As this new girl entered the room, swearing at the top of her lungs and knocking things to the side as she walked past, refusing, without even being spoken to, to remove her bag, I looked to the rest of the class and started the lesson. I marked the roll, handed out resources to the rest, and sent them on their way to enjoy the practical components of this course.

Only when everyone else had moved away did I crouch down to her level and say, “I know you might have a lot going on right now, but if you’d like this can be a place where you can just be normal for a little while.”

Then I moved on to the rest of the class and left her to think. After thirty minutes of sitting stubbornly in the corner with her arms crossed tightly against her chest, she removed her bag. After another ten, she joined the class. After the following lesson, she helped me pack away the resources after class, dipping into her own lunch time to do so.

Sure the rest of the week came with food thrown in my face, a loud “fuck you” when I asked a student to put their phone away, and an adamant “I’m not smoking” from another as they raised the cigaretter once again ever so proudly, but I could get of all that when I washed of my shit shield at the end of each day.

What would never leave me, however, is the memory of finding that one thing that this one child needed and watching it change everything for her, at least in my class. It is moments like these that remind you that it is all worth it. No matter the challenges presented by the students, caregivers, or community, every once in a while you will find that one thing that will change a life, and when you change a single life in such a profound and positive way, you change the world.

So, yes, even all these years later, with the world as it is, with the added pressure of online education and the ever-present disregard for the uncounted hours of work, stress and heartache now on my plate, I wouldn’t trade it. I love being a teacher and the chances it offers me to change the world.