We’re Too Uneducated And Inexperienced To Title This

When I was a teaching assistant, I used to work as a substitute teacher for very unruly classes — the classes licensed teachers wouldn’t accept. I had full responsibility and worked all hours, and my numbers showed that my class was making great progress. I just had some bad luck that caused me to not finish teaching college at that time.

Because I didn’t have my license, my boss came to me one day and told me that I was actually “too uneducated and inexperienced” to teach and that I “must have had someone telling me what to do” behind me. I told her I didn’t, but she didn’t believe me and told me she’ll be watching me like a hawk to see if I was fraudulent, changing grades and stuff.

I never did anything to my students. I’m not a cruel person and I didn’t want anyone implying that I wasn’t doing my job as expected. They all got to the next year with scores higher than we would’ve expected beforehand.

But. I started to behave like a beginner student teacher, to my boss only! I asked really stupid questions like, “How can I make my class quiet? I’m really too uneducated to know, so can you please help this teacher out by showing me?” I knew fully well that my formerly disruptive class wouldn’t ever listen to her. I called her for anything and everything: a parent wanting to talk to me, a kid who fell down and needed a band-aid… anything. I made sure to tell her I was too uneducated and inexperienced to handle such a task and I needed to observe a true pro work.

My colleagues got in on it, too. They started pointing out everything I wasn’t allowed to do but expected to do, and they told my boss that she was being very hypocritical by expecting me to do so.

In the meantime, I was discussing gamification, the need for programming and English in primary school, showing older colleagues new teaching methods and digital assistance… All the goodies.

After six weeks, my boss was done. She called me to her office and apologized to me for saying that I was too uneducated and inexperienced. She said she was renewing my contract and got some budget to pay for half of my studies.

I was happy to tell her that I gotten a new job that would pay for everything to get me my license and I would get full creative freedom… without being watched like a hawk.

This was two years ago. I almost have my license now and I still work at that awesome school that hired me after the allegations of being “uneducated and inexperienced” at my old job.