Organized Chaos

In a moment of extreme frustration during my first year of teaching, I begged my mentor to explain: “Why is this so hard?”

She looked me in the eye and responded ever-so-calmly. “Because, you’re used to being in control of your own success. And now… Well… now you aren’t. Your success doesn’t just depend on you anymore.”

She gestured to the thirty-five empty desks around the room. “Your success lies in their hands.”

Over the years, I’ve learned that success doesn’t just lie in the hands of my students. It is jumbled within their hearts, minds, home-life, social circle, maturity, emotions and mindsets. So much is completely out of a teacher’s control. With numerous brains and bodies and backstories in a room, it can sometimes feel like complete CHAOS. And that’s because it is. Each student is going to walk into the classroom each day with an outer set of circumstances and inner frame of mind–the good and the bad–that a teacher has absolutely no control over. Multiply that by the number of students in the room, and you end up with dozens of students in their own unique universe with you at the helm, hoping to guide and inspire them in their education.

It’s a lot to handle, to say the least.

A few years on, when I finally felt a little more in control of my teaching environment, I reflected on the change. I realized I’d finally found the routines and rhythms that brought order to my room and instilled a sense of security and normalcy in my students. With the right systems, mindsets, and routines, we were able to teach and learn with purpose. The chaos was still there, but I’d learn to approach it with a different attitude: I accepted that I couldn’t change their outside lives and their inner worlds, but I met all that chaos with systems that brought order to the time we spent together.

In other words, I learned to embrace the organized chaos.

And that is when the magic happens.

Meeting the chaos with the organization helps students feel safe. When students know what to expect out of their teacher and know what is expected out of them, it leaves room for all the good aspects of their unique chaos to shine through. In the safety of an organized atmosphere, students can wonder and work hard, participate and think critically, and enjoy as they learn.