How 17 Years Make a Difference

One of the weirdest things happened to me yesterday.  I was walking into another teachers classroom and standing at the back of the room was the Teacher Aide.  

I never saw her before, well at least I thought I never saw her before.  

As I got closer she said, "Mr. Vigil".  

I must of titled my head like a confused dog because she said, "You were my 8th grade teacher".

My first thought was hold was "How old was she?" and then my second thought was, "I must be old".  

We had a quick conversation and I found out she was 31.  So I did some quick calculations and realized she was in my class during my 3rd year of teaching.  

I had to ask her, "How was I as a teacher back then'?

You can tell she was being nice because she described me as nervous.  

The truth was I was struggling.  I remember those early years of teaching and if I am honest I did not enjoy them much at all.  There were more days than not I thought about giving up.  

I think about those days a lot as I am talking to new teacher and I see the struggle in their eyes.  I also think about what I can say to them to help them in these early years.  

In my latest video I give some tips on classroom management and I hope somebody somewhere can have better start to their teaching career then I did 20 years ago.  

To watch the video click on the image above.