What I've Learned (1) - Don't give up

Fred and I have both recently read a book called Outliers. We liked it a lot. It is full of chapters on different topics all related to how people become successful. That it is not just luck but some underlying factor that has helped make them successful. A great book. Fred thought that I should write something similar on what I have learned from teaching.
There are a few things I've learned, so I will write them periodically in my blog in short segments.

Don't Give Up

My first teaching assignment was kindergarten in a public school in Columbus, Ohio. I had my bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, which is supposed to prepare you to teach kindergarten through 8th grade. (I now understand why most colleges split it up into early childhood education from K-3rd grade and then intermediate from 4th through 8th. But that was not the case where I went to school.) Needless to say, I felt wholly unprepared for kindergarten. Unfortunately in Columbus at that time, many teachers had to sub for years before they could find a position, there were lots of new teachers coming out of Ohio State and it was very difficult to find a job in the flooded market. I had applied all over, to everything I could find and then thought I might as well sub in the Columbus Public Schools until I could find something full time. I thought it might give me an in. During my interview, I was offered a teaching position, but I wouldn't know what or where it was until a week before school was to start. I was so excited I accepted, but was worried later when I realized that it could mean anything from kindergarten through 8th grade, anywhere in the city.
I received a kindergarten position.
Wow. Teaching kindergarten was the hardest job I have ever had. I was expected to introduce basically everything that was on the 4th grade proficiency test to the little kindergarteners. They were to know by the 6th week of school all of the number combinations that added up to 12, yet many of my little ones, barely turned 5 could not tell the difference between a number and a letter. I tried to teach them the required fractions and variables and to read, but it was a struggle the whole year.
On top of the required academics I was to teach, there was the issue of management. Something sorely lacking in most education programs. I had no idea how to control a class.
Luckily I had an assistant in the room who had either volunteered or assisted in kindergarten classes for 15 years and I depended on her for a lot. I remember many afternoons as I would ask her about all of the things I had done wrong that day and she would continuously reassure me that I was a good teacher. I needed it. I was going home every day fully drained. I had no energy even to pick up a book to read, but had to unwind to the Simpsons for an hour after school. My poor husband who was working from home as a contractor wanted a hug and stimulating conversation when I got home from school and all I could say was "no touching, no hugging, must sit down."
I tried everything I had learned and read to try to learn more about management throughout that year. The parents of my students would get phone calls, or receive behavior logs that had to be signed every night, or hear about withheld recess. I tried about 10 different management plans that year. There was the red, yellow, green light on the board, with different consequences for movement from one color to another and rewards for staying on green. I experimented with daily behavior logs that I kept, a piece of paper for each student that I carried with me on a clipboard all day, with every transgression that a kid could think of doing, next to which I would put check marks and require a parent signature at the end of every day. I used time outs and a separate area of the room for calm down time. There was one student who would get to the end of my discipline plan, already missing recess and getting a call home, by 9am. What could I do that would work?
My mentor teacher (Ohio provided mentor teachers to come in and observe and meet with me 20 times that first year of teaching.) had never taught kindergarten and would give me an exhaustive list of everything I had done wrong and the misbehaviors of all my students and how I should get things together every other week or so. Luckily she came right before gym and I could have 20 minutes to cry before I had to retrieve the students.
Things turned around somewhat when I had a psychologist come to sit in on class for a while to observe a student who may have needed extra help. She told me that I was doing a great job and listed things she had observed that proved to her that I was a wonderful teacher. I almost wept with relief. She also mentioned a book I should read called "Teacher and Child" by Haim Ginnot. It changed the way I talked to the kids and was so full of wisdom. I have read it a couple of more times as I have taught other grades and used the advice daily.
I have observed many other teachers at the 4 schools where I've taught and have noticed that some give up. They think that kids are just the way they are. They are disrespected daily, laughed at, not listened to, and they think that is normal. They just learn to ignore it.
I never got that way. I think it started my kindergarten year, when I tried one discipline plan after another until I finally figured out how to manage lovingly and wisely. It is maybe harder to push back and expect more from kids, but it is worthwhile for their learning and my own self-respect.
After 7 years of teaching, I have never fully figured it out. How to have a caring classroom, with everyone feeling respected. I believe that teaching is one of the most difficult professions. But, still don't give up, and keep the expectations high.