A Teacher in the Classroom and Out

“I’ve gotten used to you being a teacher everywhere you go.”

My oldest son said this to me at the beginning of the summer after some children we don’t know joined a game of tag that we were playing together.

My son is right. I can’t step out of the role of teacher—whether it’s finding the learning in anything, showing random kids the creatures that I find outdoors or stepping in when things get out of hand.

It’s this last situation that sometimes leads to uncomfortable moments. In my classroom, I have a measure of control. When I see cliques forming, unkind behavior or the start of bullying, I step in and help the students see how they can make a change. But my path is more difficult when I am out of the classroom. When I’m playing on the playground, having a picnic at the park or volunteering with a community group, it’s not as easy to jump in and make a change.

I’ve tried not to intervene. I was only there to support my own children, I’d tell myself. It wasn’t my place to tell other children what to do. Besides, wouldn’t their parents get upset?

Over the years, my thinking has changed. Now I speak up. While I can’t always make as much of a difference in the real world as I can in my classroom, I owe it to everyone to try.

Of course, my actions are often different from what I would do in the classroom. My reactions are quieter, more measured. In a community group where kids divided themselves into cliques with astonishing speed, I worked to make sure that everyone learned the names of the other kids. It was a simple step, but it helped to bring everyone together.

On the playground, when little boys were playing a game of shooting pretend guns at kids they didn’t even know, I suggested that they channel their game into pretending to fight an imaginary common foe, like a fire or a flood.

Far from being rude and indignant, kids are receptive to my efforts. In fact, they seem to crave any interaction from adults. Part of this is probably because I’m always gentle and playful in my efforts. Instead of nagging, I just pose the question—“Could we try it this way?”

Being a classroom teacher has shown me the possibilities of how wonderful things can be when kids work together. I can’t give that up for the summer. And my son’s comment? It was actually intended as a compliment—a statement of his faith in me to bring a little of the collaboration and cooperation of my classroom to every new situation.

Kissner is a fourth-grade teacher in Pennsylvania.