My first teaching job was as a long term substitute for a teacher on maternity leave. I started at the second semester. I taught 7th and 8th grade English at a public school. Fresh out of my credential program, I had a vision of establishing a classroom culture where all students felt safe and respected, and no one got bullied for being different. Hold on, I need to go check the mail for my "Teacher of the Year" award.
I planned to spend the first day talking about bullying, particularly for LGBT kids and kids with learning disabilities. I didn't get through everything, so my speechifying took 3 days. Is talking to middle schoolers for 3 days a good way to set classroom culture or teach anything? No. It is not.
I talked about how some kids have ADD or ADHD, and also that it's wrong to call each other "retarded" because everyone is different and we should help each other, not put each other down. The kid who actually had ADHD heard "ADHD" and "retarded" and ran out of the room. Crap.
As the semester went on, a group of kids kept calling things they didn't like "gay." Teacher training taught me that you have to enforce your rules, and at this point I was running out of options. So I got creative. I decided that if you continued to misuse "gay" after being warned, you'd have to call a gay person and read them an apology. Some students were up in arms. They asked if the principal had said this was OK. On the spot I said yes, even though I hadn't run this by the administration. Some students went to the principal to ask about this, and I got called into his office at the end of the day. I got scolded. I had to go back to my classes the next day and say that I was so proud of my students because they spoke up against something they didn't like, and I heard them and changed my policy.
I was so embarrassed. My principal thought I was an idealist idiot, and my students thought I was a joke. Some students later came to me and said that they wanted to talk to a gay person. No one was happy with how this turned out.
I was hired back the next year for a temporary position, but they still interviewed others for it. The next year I did not receive another position, and I left feeling like a failure. I knew I'd grown a lot as a teacher, and all teachers make mistakes, but I knew I wasn't yet the teacher I wanted to be. I still feel uncomfortable when I think about my time there. The embarrassment at my futile attempts at teaching for social justice has not yet worn off.
Fast forward four years. I get a Facebook message from a name I recognize from that school, but the gender is wrong. Well, I should say, the gender was wrong, and now it's right. It was a student who is a trans woman, and she said that I was one of her favorite teachers ever! How generous! (Or most of her teachers were worse than me? Yikes.) I was so proud of that student for living her truth, and becoming an outspoken advocate for trans rights. I have no idea what-- if any-- impact my 3-day anti-bullying speech had on any of my students. (Except the one who ran out. Clearly he wasn't a fan.) But I feel a measure of redemption knowing that some trans child felt safe in my class.
I don't generally regret things, and I don't regret that incident, as embarrassing as it was (is). I saw it as an ill-executed attempt at making a safe learning environment for all. Now I see my embarrassment as the price I paid for making a transgender 14 year old feel safe, important, and deserving of respect and protection. I believe that good intentions do not override bad results. But sometimes it takes a while to see the full result of your good intentions. And maybe it's not as bad as you thought.
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