Becoming a Theacher with CPTSD?

[Sunflower_Rising]

I'm jumping in late here - just joined the forum last week - but I'm also a teacher. I'm not teaching at the moment while I work on my master's (I know my limits), but teaching and furthering my own education have actually spurred a lot of self healing and growth for me. As others mentioned, teaching requires good boundaries and empathy, both with students and faculty/administration. There are now a lot of great resources about social emotional learning and trauma-informed practices that support our work. I feel that we, who have CPTSD (especially from childhood), actually make the best teachers because we understand where the kids are coming from. We don't see behaviors as defiant, but rather as a cry for help because that's what they were for us, too. We don't see kids as bad, but rather as coming from bad situations. This can make a huge difference in their lives.

I've taught pre-K all the way through college. The education system isn't designed to produce emotionally healthy adults, so we can't expect our colleagues to be on board with character development because it's not on a standardized test. Plus, you can't teach what you don't know, and that goes for emotional skills, too.

It's really hard to work with people who are emotionally abusive to the students, and they're surprisingly common. I had one colleague who openly said she wanted to be able to hit her students, like in "the good old days." Luckily, when you've learned the tools to set boundaries and stand for them, you also gain tools to stand up for your students in productive ways. Learning about nonviolent communication has helped a lot, both with students and those I work with. We, as survivors of abuse and neglect, do have an advantage because, when we deal with our own stuff, we end up becoming pretty mature, emotionally stable people. Students, especially children, really need that. (As a side note, I found the most warm, caring colleagues while teaching preschool, but that was just my own experience.)

I've had to do tons of work on myself, and I'm not even close to done. But I was led to this career as part of my healing, and it's been invaluable to my journey. You can't be a great teacher and an emotionally unwell, stunted person. I'm going to be a great teacher, and I think that you will, too. 

Sunny

[Yipeee]

Dear Shearwater,

You are welcome, and no worries re the reply time, its good to hear how you have been finding things! I am so pleased for you that you are enjoying your course, and that you are getting the support you need from your T and working through things. How this is helping you cope with all the new challenges!

Wish you well with your next semester! I was just going to write something about confidence and focus, (as I can relate), but thought I'd ask you instead: Of what your thoughts are on what comes first out of those two things? Be interested to see what you think from your experiences, as I was just thinking about how they maybe inter-related..

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

[Shearwater]

Sunflower_Rising, thank you for your reply. It's wery interesting to read, and I can relate to a lot of what you are telling. This education helped me a lot in my healing process. I agree that there isn't much focus on emotionelly  growth in the education system. But I have noticed in my education today that there is a much better focus on how to treat children with respect. Giving the children/youth a chance to cooperate instead of demanding them to listen at once. While working in school I noticed that the children easely got the  blame for what went wrong in the classroom, in my education I learn that it's the teachers responsibility. To read about how the children should be treated when they don't cooperate has helped me understand what I didn't get when I was a child and struggled to do everything that was expected of me.

I also feel that working with my CPTSD can be a big resource to become a teacher that show the pupils emotionelly support. " You can't teach what you haven't thought" is so true, and is probably why there is a big lack of emotionelly support in the school system  and in my own childhood. I feel like it should be so much more information in how to handle emotions everywhere. If everyone could get a chance to understand this I think the world would be a better place..

Yipeee
What I think of confidence and focus is that since my confidence is very low I get very nervous being so visible as I am when I teach. I have always been better in theory than In practice. I need a lot of time to figure things out and be confident with it, before I can show it or teach others. I noticed that when I have thought in class in something that I'm really good at and have confidence in,  my focus easely goes to the pupils, how they learn and what they need. When I feel very insecure in what I'm doing all my focus is on me, how I behave, and what others think of me. This can make a bad lesson even worse because I easely get  stressed and full of anxiety, and then sadly I have no chance of giving the students what they need.

I don't  have a lot of good experience in my teaching but I know that I've made it sometimes and that I probably will get more of the good experience as I will learn more, and get a chance to try teaching some weeks every semester.
Did I understand your question right?
I really want to see what you think of it, how confidence and focus maybe inter-related?