Youth

In this first real article I want to talk about my biggest force but my biggest challenge at the same time : my age.

It really is my proudest achievement to have strated my career young. In France, the common age to start working is around 23-24 yo. And because I strated my dream job at 21 I'm delighted.

The thing is that my students are between 1 and 7 years younger than me and it's really not much. Add that I may look physically younger than my real age and I always have to make sure to explain who I am to my coworkers and new students for them not to confuse me for a student. It can be flattering but because I have to make myself respected to be able to be a teacher, it's tricky.

At the beginning of the school year, I try to be strict and firm with the students. I don't know them, I don't know who they are and how they act so - like every teacher advices - I need to set up bonderies, limits and respect. How to do that - you might ask. Very good question ! IDK.

Just kidding I do have some tips for that but I'll talk about this subject in more details in another article.

It's hard to set my role so I have not said my age to them in September. Because I'm their teacher they have no idea how my life could be like of course. I also dress formal at the beginning of the year to build a little bit of distance with them until I know them more.

So yeah okay it's tricky to be young BUT it's also wonderful !

Being the same generation -gen z represent ✌️ - as them helps me understand them. We have a lot of childhood memories in common, the same games, the same songs, the same youtubers... It's really usefull to know their interests to build interresting lessons around things that they probably like. The biggest difference is their behavior. I mean, they are teenagers, they hate life they hate school they hate adults and they have better things to think about than homeworks. Once they know me, my personnality or even my age, they don't see me exactly as an adult. Again : tricky, they can lose respect for my status at anytime. But they don't see me as an enemy. Add the fact that I'm really kind, caring and patient (✨) and they are more confortable.

I have realised this difference when I discovered that some of my sweetest students were in fact mean and obnoxious with some of my colleagues. I'm not saying that all my colleagues are perfect teachers nor that they all are kind to students, but even the most adorable teachers were not well treated. I'm no amazing teacher and I was hard on my students sometimes, so why were they not so mean to me ? My hypothesis is then my age.

To conclude on this subject - because I have talked about it enough - I'm just going to say that I haven't yet mastered the age difference with my students and its consequences on my work. Bu I have witnessed more benefits than drawbacks and I think it's a really interesting challenge !

Thank you very much for your time and your attention !

Fetilon~