Presence Not Power: The Inner Work of Becoming a Teacher
Listening to the Light
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Medium - Painted intuitively by hand using the iPad Pro
“This post is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”
If Chapter One ended with a whispered beginning, the next stage of life came in loud and unrelenting.
Teacher training was the formal entry into this new world, and while I approached it with earnest intent, nothing could have prepared me for the reality.
On paper, I was doing well. I absorbed the theory of pedagogy with enthusiasm. I was, at least in observation mode, full of articulate commentary. Watching other teachers from the safe distance of the back of the room, I had no shortage of opinions: some thoughtful, some naive, most delivered with the confident detachment of someone who didn’t yet know what he didn’t know. I could speak about lesson structure, pacing, and classroom management. From the sidelines, I was a model trainee.
But standing at the front of the room? That was another matter entirely.
Let’s be clear, I wasn’t short of passion for my subject. I was determined to inspire, to share something real. But that ideal met hard reality with the subtlety of a slap. And my first placement pulled no punches.
The school was a small Christian state secondary in the heart of the Oval, South London. Inner city. Multicultural. High energy. I walked in on the first day and very nearly turned around and walked back out again. The corridors buzzed with a kind of sharpened edge; the students were streetwise, self-possessed, and, from the look in their eyes, clearly already clocking me as fresh meat. The staffroom wasn’t much safer. I’d never felt more like prey in my life.
But then I reached the art department, and everything changed. Or so I thought.
I stood in the doorway, amazed. A full class of GCSE students, quietly working behind easels, stood like painters in a 19th-century atelier. A still life was arranged at the front, a vase, some cloth, and they were all painting it in silence. It was eerie. Beautiful, but eerie. The Head of Art was a cheerful man with a bohemian air, dressed in a blue blazer and jeans, with long silver hair immaculately groomed and a stripy, double-length, multicoloured scarf.
He wandered the room like a benevolent ghost, occasionally stepping up to a student’s work, taking their brush, and casually painting on their canvas. Not a single protest. They just nodded and carried on.
“This,” I thought, “is going to be a breeze.”
Right up my street.
But it turns out, not all classes are arranged like 19th-century ateliers.
My first class wasn’t even officially mine. I was more of an assistant, floating in the background while the real teacher held the reins. And yet, those early tastings of what teaching actually required were enough to shake me. I began to see just how little I understood. How could I, or anyone really, have been so shortsighted as to judge a teacher? We’ve all been students. We’ve all known the impact of a great teacher, and the damage of a bad one. You’d think that would give us more empathy. Instead, I had walked in with theory, idealism, and about five minutes of experience. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything.
Ever walked into a room and instantly known you were out of your depth?
My first real attempts to engage a class were, frankly, pathetic. I had no authority. No connection. In their eyes, I was just another trainee, one of many who would come and go. They weren’t cruel, exactly, just quietly strategic. They ignored me at first. Then, slowly, they began to test me.
And they were cunning about it.
The bolder students didn’t hesitate to go personal. They’d lob inappropriate questions, prying into my background, my life, even my relationship status. Anything to rattle me. They wanted to see what I was made of. Was I just another adult talking about rules, or would I actually hold my ground? Did I know my subject? Did I walk my talk? Or was I full of the kind of empty phrases they’d heard a thousand times before?
I fell right into the trap.
I assumed, rather sweetly, as only someone with no practical experience could, that if I just made friends with them, they’d naturally respect me. I soon learned otherwise. Students don’t want friends. They want boundaries. Clarity. Someone who can hold the space so they don’t have to.
It took me a long time to see that.
It’s interesting, now, looking back on those early days, how easy it is to misread what makes a great teacher. From the outside, it can all look very simple. You see someone standing at the front of a classroom, delivering knowledge with quiet authority while a room full of students listens in obedient silence. You assume they’ve got it sorted. That this, somehow, is what good teaching looks like: command, control, compliance.
At first glance, that’s exactly what I thought I saw in that art department. The one with the GCSE students painting still lifes like they were in a Parisian studio. The Head of Department seemed to move through the classroom with such ease, brushing over student canvases without protest, directing the space without tension. It looked like complete mastery.
And in a way, it was. But not the kind I first imagined.
That environment wasn’t a product of strict control or fear-based discipline. It wasn’t about asserting dominance or demanding silence. It was something else entirely. A more complex, nuanced web of trust, expectation, consistency, and respect. It had been built. Not imposed.
At the time, I didn’t yet understand how much more was going on. I thought the atmosphere was effortless. I hadn’t yet learned that effortlessness is almost always the result of invisible effort; of long hours spent building rapport, shaping boundaries, and establishing trust. It wasn’t about power. It was about presence.
My understanding of teaching began to shift, not through theory, but through raw, lived experience. Slowly, painfully, and then all at once.
I started to see that true authority wasn’t about volume or control, but about something far quieter: consistency. Presence. Integrity. I had to build trust, not demand it. I had to form relationships, genuine ones, and pair them with boundaries I could stand by, no matter what. That wasn’t something you could fake. Students could sniff out inauthenticity faster than a Buddhist can sense ego in a retreat centre.
Even though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was learning would eventually come to fruition when I founded my own learning centre. But back then, I was just trying to stay afloat. Bit by bit, I knuckled down. I began to lead a few small projects on my own. By the end of my training year, I was managing select classes by myself. Just a few. But enough to taste what real teaching demanded.
If you’ve ever worked with teenagers, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
It was the toughest personal challenge I’d ever faced. Because here’s the truth: your class, their energy, their behaviour, their flow, is a direct reflection of your inner state. You can’t hide behind clever ideas or theory. You’re the weather system in the room. And if you’re stormy inside, your students will bring umbrellas.
In that way, teaching became a kind of spiritual boot camp.
Forget the hours I’d spent chanting. Forget the retreats and the workshops and the lofty masterclasses in self-awareness. If you want to fast-track your personal growth, stand in front of thirty teenagers who don’t yet trust you. You’ll meet every part of yourself, fast. And the only way to earn their respect is to deserve it.
They were, without a doubt, the best spiritual teachers I’ve ever had.
Thank you for reading Listening to the Light.
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Love this story. I am not a fan of teenagers but I can see they can be a tough crowd.