Fake It Til You Make It

I thought being a grown up was supposed to be easy.  You were through with all of that "teen angst" stuff and didn't have to spend time self-reflecting and thinking about the kind of person you wanted to be.  Being an adult meant you WERE the person you wanted to be and that was that.  Right?

Well, I must be revisiting my angsty-teen self because I've been doing a lot of self reflecting lately.  And it's kind of gross.  I mean, who actually likes the idea of digging deep into your personality and analyzing the traits that made you do or say the thing that you lay awake at night replaying in your head wondering if it was alright?

Not me, I'll tell you that much.

But, regardless of liking it, it's exactly what I've been doing lately.  I've been thinking a lot about how I treat other people, why I do the things that I do, and (maybe most importantly) if those things that I do are aligned with my personal values, my hopes for my kids, and of course - because I'm a teacher - my classroom rules.

One of my classroom rules that I've always been most proud of is:

I feel very strongly that we owe it to each other to be kind, always.  And I've always thought that we should play by that old rule that our moms teach us: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."  But I have a big mouth - a VERY big mouth - and a quick wit with a slow filter.  The result? I end up saying all sorts of junk that isn't very kind and that I probably should have kept to myself.  Point being -- I can't live by this rule, so how can I expect a classroom of angsty pre-teens to live by it?  So ultimately, the problem must be with me: how can I teach myself to be silent instead of snarky?

There are several people in my life that I think aren't very nice.  They're grouchy.  They don't say hello when people enter a room.  They don't laugh at my jokes.  And, maybe the worst violation of all: they ignore me.  When I speak to them, they don't reply.  They're silent.

For weeks now I've been considering that maybe they just don't know how to be kind to other people.  Maybe they missed that part of Kindergarten when they learned social skills and how to play nice with others.  But this morning it hit me:  They're silent.  Silent.  As in: If you can't be kind, be silent.

Maybe they're purposely silent because they can't be nice to me.  Maybe they're better at following my rule than I am.


Well.  I rolled that idea around in my head for a while, and let me tell you, I didn't like that at all.  First, how could they not like me?  I'm pretty awesome.  And secondly, how could they actually be better at my kind vs. silent rule than me?!  I made the rule, so I should be inherently good at it.  And thirdly (and most importantly, because the third point is ALWAYS the most important)....if they ARE being silent in lieu of being unkind.....and if that was making me feel so uncomfortable and upset.....then is that really a rule I want to have in my classroom - or in my life?!!!

I'm sure you're wondering how I respond to this silent treatment.  I wish I could say that I respond like a grown up (because I AM a grown up....) and that I simply move on (because, after all, being silent is better than being unkind).

But that would be a lie.

I can't handle cold silence, so I fill it....with obnoxious, happy chatter.  I reply to their silence with chipper, perky excitement, and I just pretend that they're happy about it and eagerly awaiting the next time we get to hang out together.  (What's more grown up than that?!)


Meanwhile, on bus duty....

One of my former students (she's an 8th grader now) stopped me yesterday as she was getting on the bus.  "I have to tell you this story," she said.

(This is why I go out to the buses every afternoon.  It's not "required" duty. so to speak, but it makes the afternoon bus lane safer to have a teacher out there, and it means that I get to see some of my former students...and sometimes they stop to tell me awesome stories like this one.)

"We were reading this book with Mrs. Griffen and she said, 'Mrs. Yeagle taught you this word last year, remember? It starts with an 'F'....' Well, the word was foreshadowing, Mrs. Yeagle, but Kaden said, 'Fake it til you make it!' instead!"

We both had a good laugh over that one, and as I waved goodbye to her I felt pretty good.  Sure, he hadn't remembered foreshadowing, but he had remembered the life lesson I'd instilled in the class:  Fake it til you make it.  And really, what's more important, life lessons or literary terms?  (Don't answer that.....)

Fake it til you make it becomes our mantra in 6th grade right around this time every year.  Hormones are raging wild and no one wants to be nice to anyone else.  The rowdy boys don't want to go to specials, the girls don't want to sit next to each other, and no one has anything encouraging to say to anyone.  It's ugly.  But, we fake it til we make it.  No one has to know that we hate PE or music class, and no one needs to know that we secretly wish that the girl next to us would be sick for a week so we had a break from her - we just have to paste a fake smile on, act with more positivity and enthusiasm than ever before, and pretend to enjoy everything.  And it works.  They get kicked out of music less, enjoy PE again, and forget to be snotty to each other because they're all too focused on faking their way to niceness.


So flash back to this conundrum about my kind/silent rule and it's possible implementation on me.

I'm not a "kind or silent" type person.  Turns out I'm actually more of a "kind....or obnoxiously kind" type person.  And while I don't think I can actually make my classroom rule ("Be Kind....and if you can't be kind, be obnoxiously kind") I DO think that I need to change my rule to something a little more reasonable for us all - and to something that doesn't encourage my students to be silent and rude to each other.  So, new rule:  "Be Kind.  And if you can't be kind, fake it til you make it."  I much prefer the idea of my classroom being full of kids being overly (and possibly fake...) peppy than kids sitting in silence and ignoring one another.  And ultimately, the happier they pretend to be, the happier they will eventually become because it's nearly impossible to fake happiness and not start feeling just a little bit of real happiness as a side effect.

Maybe we all need to remember to fake it til we make it.  We could fake our way into a happier day every day!

At least be sure to fake it with me because the whole silent thing totally stresses me out....