Honesty the best policy?

Well it worked for the president didn't it? Maybe I don't mean honesty, perhaps sincerity is more appropriate. Honesty is saying what you believe to be true while sincerity is communicating not only what you believe to be true but that you actually believe it to be true.

It's kind of an ongoing theme with me and school but it applied yesterday too during my interviews. As far as school goes, speaking my mind has always been a problem, especially in high school. Not only could I not keep my mouth shut but I also was not careful about how I phrased things. It definitely hurt me. I had not one but two teachers stand up in Honors Society meetings to explicitly state I should not be a member because of my behavior. I didn't get in. Not a big deal actually but indicative of the trouble I got myself into.

In college it's been different but in many ways the same. If something doesn't make sense to me I need to understand it. I can't just let it go so I question professors, their message, their method, their grading. I don't do it to be a pain, I do it so I can understand and often it's not easy but I really try. As in high school, I say things sometimes in ways people don't like and it ends up causing me a lot of extra problems, like with my methods class and with the research class and then I have to deal with the consequences but I don't think I'll ever stop. It's just part of who I am and secretly, I'm proud of it. Not that people take offense or that it causes me difficulty but that I can say I left it all out there and tried to get the answers even if I don't get there. I feel like a lot of the people I talk to at work and students in the school of education can't say that. They talk about professors and say they're ridiculous for a variety of reasons but they make no effort to try and understand why they do what they do. To me that's disingenuous. It's dishonest to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in class and then bash the professor during the break. I just can't do that and I don't really trust the people that do. Other students get annoyed with it, I can tell. Some say they think I'm just being difficult. It's very frustrating. Perhaps my sincerity is good but carried to a fault.

As a future teacher I think sincerity can be a real advantage. For some reason kids are really good at detecting BS. It's like a switch that when BS is input it shuts off their respect and listening mechanisms. You can see it on the faces of the kids in classes with teachers that do this. They have lost all respect and they're not engaged. An interview I had yesterday supports my point.

I met with a vice-principal who didn't seem too friendly at first. She asked me a couple of questions and my response to one in particular I think changed the direction of the interview. She asked me what three words (or phrases) students would use to describe me as a teacher. I thought about it for a minute and then said professional, flexible, and engaging. Though I did make the point they probably wouldn't use the word engaging and I would be hard-pressed to think of anyone outside of education who I've ever heard use it except perhaps in reference to military combat. Anyway, I answered honestly because I think that's what they would say. I didn't say I'd be their favorite teacher necessarily or that I'd be incredibly 'dynamic' or 'hilarious' but those are the three things I strive to balance and measure my performance against. She liked the answer a lot. I could tell by the way she responded to it, her body language, and how she took longer to respond to my answer than I did to her question. After that, the interview was cake and at the end she said she usually gives first-time interviewers advice to help them in their future meetings. She said I was great and she specifically said sincere. It was the best compliment she could've given me.