Filed under: Daily Life
At the beginning of the year, some of the more experienced teachers were reminiscing about the students they had. Some of them were commiserating with me since I mostly had a ninth grade prep. A comment one teacher made about students suddenly shooting up and growing taller popped into my head the other day when one of my students turned around to see me standing next to him and he said, “Oh my God! I’m taller than my teacher!” I looked up (literally) and felt a quiet shock. When this guy came in to my classroom in August, he was a little pudgy kid with a quirky sense of humor. Now, he is a taller pudgy kid with a quirky sense of humor. I surreptitiously looked around the classroom and noticed that most of the boys were, indeed, much taller than I. For some reason, this realization made me a little sad inside.
Filed under: Daily Life
I can feel it. The mental breakdown is coming. It’s getting much more difficult for me to contain myself and be really happy with my classes. Part of it, I believe, is due to the fact that the school year is almost over and I, like all of the students, am straining to get out of here. The other, larger, issue is my own personality and inability to roll with the punches. Some of my students are grade-A pains in the ass and I’m having more trouble dealing with their shit. Today, I literally threatened one ofmy students with bodily harm if he disrupted class. I seriously told him that I would kill him if he got out of line. I told another student in the same class that the thing that separated him from his peers is that everyone had a future ahead of him/her while he had none. What the hell kind of teacher am I? Whenever I say things like that, I regret it immediately. I need to do some quality control in my head, but when I’m constantly being goaded, I can’t stop myself. Petty, vindictive, and cruel, I know. I’m not trying to excuse myself. Even I think I’m acting very shittily towards my students and I’m positive they know that I’m very fed up with them. It’s so hard; I feel like I’m going to fly into millions of pieces and scatter everywhere.
I spent thirty minutes making a movie based on the tableaux my students performed and I had to delete it because I forgot to add a scene! It’s little things like this that can be incredibly frustrating.
Filed under: Daily Life
Teaching has definitely been more about learning than anything else. The negative things I knew about myself were brought out in sharp relief and I felt ashamed. However, I also learned that I’m not a completely bad person. If I try hard enough, I can actually be caring and compassionate. Who knew?
Teaching has stretched me in so many ways. I worked with a group of students who come from backgrounds that are literally foreign to me. At the same time, I was able to relate to these students in ways that their other teachers could not. But even so, I was still one of “them,” their enemy, and not someone with whom they could form a relationship.
Teaching has broken me from my entropy. You know, an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion. For so long, I’ve been at rest but teaching has finally forced me to move and experience new things and new situations. I suppose this is what the veteran teachers mean when they say that every day offers new excitement. At this point, I’m just happy when none of my students riot.
Filed under: Daily Life
Well, this is it. I’m about a quarter of the way into the second semester and I’m already about to throw in the towel. For some reason, despite the six-day weekend, I’m more tired than I have been in a long while. I thought everything was going well, but I’m feeling frustrated, fatigued, and flustered. A teacher should not have to say things like this, but I sometimes have to wonder if my kids are really stupid or if I’m completely incompetent. After one semester, you would think that even freshmen would understand the importance of homework and studying, but no, my kids think that having an early dismissal, three snow days, and a Presidents’ Day weekend absolves them from their homework. I almost literally had to stifle the urge to smack the dumb expressions off of their faces when I asked them to turn in their homework from a week ago. Yes, kids have short attention spans, but this does not excuse the fact that they did not do the work that was assigned almost two weeks ago. Instead of choosing to work first and play later, they opt to play first and never work. I realize it’s hard to prioritize, but if the parents were more supportive or better at disciplining their children and making them put school as top priority, I’m convinced that we can cut down on this problem. Instead, the kids are sent to us and we’re expected to babysit them.
It’s going to be a long month until Spring Break.
Filed under: Daily Life
I love Professional Days. When I was a student, I always wondered what these days were for. Besides the official use-end of marking term grading-I think these days are best viewed as sanity days. I’m sure it sounds pretty bad to say this, but sometimes, it’s just better without the students around. The day goes by pretty quickly and you can hang out with your colleagues. Kind of. Of course, we still have to work on the grading so that the report cards go out on time. But when else can you show up to work wearing jeans and a grubby sweatshirt? Although, I do balk at not showering in the morning. Some of the male teachers get really relaxed and show up unshaved and even unshowered. It kind of reminds me of college.
2006 was an interesting year. At this time last year, I was just beginning my stint as a student teacher. The school I was sent to was in an affluent area and the neighborhood’s wealth was reflected in the school. I guess I enjoyed my time there, but when I wasn’t offered an interview, I was pretty bitter. This may seem like a harsh emotion, but considering that I asked the department head for one (because there was going to be an opening for this school year) and was told that I would be contacted, I would say that my feelings of anger and bitterness are justified. Upon finishing my student teaching, I desperately applied to several school districts, including those I wasn’t familiar with, and did not hear anything from them. I did have a preliminary interview with a local school district but I guess I didn’t qualify. In short, the reason why I moved all the way out here was because this was the only school district that offered me a position. The school I initially interviewed with actually turned me down for another applicant. It was upon Susie’s suggestion that I called up other schools that had vacancies and asked if they were interested in interviewing me. One accepted, interviewed me that day, and called me back the next day with an offer. When I think about it now, it was very foolish jumping in without knowing anything about the school, but I was desperate. Though it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I had been jobless for about a year, I didn’t want to be the only person from my graduate school who was graduating without a job. Damn pride.
The school I am at now is very different from the one I student taught in. Even though I was prepared to expect the very worst, it is not that bad. The students can definitely be difficult and it’s an uphill battle trying to get them interested in their futures. In a way, my students remind me of this passage from Patrick O’Brian’s Post Captain. In this passage, Stephen Maturin is making an observation of the common sailors in the Royal Navy, “the sailor, at sea (his proper element), lives in the present. There is nothing he can do about the past at all; and, having regard to the uncertainty of the omniptent ocean and the weather, very little about the future…Sailors will provide against a storm tomorrow, or even in a fortnight’s time; but for them the remoter possibilities are academic, unreal. They live in the present.”
I think this accurately sums up my students’ attitudes. Many of them live intensely and wholly for the present moment. They care only about themselves and their immediate circle of friends. Very few of them are interested in laying aside provisions for the future. If they can experience gratification and pleasure now, then they are satisfied. I know that part of this mindset is due to their ignorance and immaturity, but I wonder how much of this is influenced by older siblings or parents. For some of my freshmen, the idea of dropping out of school is not a novelty in their families for they have older brothers and sisters who are still living at home and working a minimum wage job. Unfortunately, those sisters may also have little ones of their own.
It’s a hopeless situation. Even at the best of times, very few, if any, would describe as an optimist. Though I don’t altogether consider myself a pessimist, when I look at some of my students, I wonder how many of them are going to drop out because they can’t (won’t) try to succeed, because they become pregnant, or just because. I only see a very few of them managing to crawl their way to the top and graduating because they care and because there is someone at home who also cares. I honestly hope and pray that I’m being uncommonly negative because this is my first year on the job and that my students will surprise me.
In order for any relationship to work, there must be commitment between both parties. I don’t think too many people realize that education and learning is the result of a good relationship between the student and the teacher. We, the educators can only do so much to impart information and guidance. How that information is processed and developed depends on the student’s willingness to learn.
I have students who bitch and whine about failing my classes but when I look up their assignments, I notice that they haven’t been doing any work in my class. When I contact their parents to alert them to this alarming behavior, they often get annoyed by the fact that I called them at home. I called one parent to let her know that her daughter was consistently late for my class and that she would have to face severe consequences unless she started coming on time. The mother’s reaction was simply, “And?”
If neither the parent nor the student wants to commit to securing a greater future, what more can I do? The very fact that I’m the only one who is committed to this relationship means that we are doomed to failure.
But what is commitment?
This is something I ask myself several times a day. Sometimes I’m questioning my level of commitment to my students and at other times I’m questioning my students’ and their parents’ commitments to their futures. It was with a bit of a shock that I realized that I had given up on several students and that I had done so quite some time ago.
This last week was truly difficult for me. Each day seemed to stretch on interminably and it was with a gasp of relief that I welcomed the weekend. I groan when I think that I have one more week of the grind until I get to go on break for the holidays. Friends of mine often tell me with a slight tinge of envy that I’m lucky to have my summers off, plus all the other holidays and winter/spring breaks. However, I don’t think they realize how much work I actually do during the regular school year. There were several days this past week where I didn’t get to leave until well after my contractually stated end time. In fact, on Thursday, I was in the school for 12 hours. 12 HOURS. That’s five hours of overtime for which I do not receive any compensation. So why do I do it?
I’d like to think that I’m truly committed to the welfare of my students and I want to make sure that I take my time while I’m grading. However, the real reason is that I did not want to take any work with me over the weekend. For that, I will gladly put in extra hours during the week. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I still have to work today and tomorrow.
I know that I’m at the low point (I’ve been saying that rather frequently as of late) and I’m fervently hoping that winter break will rejuvenate me and, hopefully, fill me with a greater sense of benevolence and commitment towards my students.
I am a product of the public school system of the Chicago suburbs. For 14 years, I’ve slogged through rain and snow, never missing a day of school for a weather related reason (except once, in elementary school). With winter approaching, I occasionally hear students and faculty talking about how an inch of snow will shut down the school system while everyone lies cowering under their covers. These past couple of months here, I’ve rubbed the special type of toughness that is required to live in the Midwest that these weak mid-Atlantic kids do not have. HOWEVER, during the course of our nightly telephone conversation my dad tells me that my alma mater, and all the surrounding high schools in the suburbs, closed down today due to the weather! It’s only the first day of December and the kids already got a snow day. Ridiculous! Why didn’t I get this when I was in high school? I’m a little disappointed and just a tad bitter.
Filed under: Daily Life
Something happened at work the other day that left me feeling confused and angry. Though it was a small incident, I can’t get over how angry I am. In one of my classes, I have another teacher who co-teaches the class. I use the word, teach, a little loosely since I am the one who is planning out the lessons and actually carrying them out. This is partly my fault since I am somewhat of a control freak, but the other teacher has never really offers any input. The one time she suggested something, she decided that it would be better if we just verbally reiterate the concepts the students had trouble with rather than plan a new lesson around it. So when I planned a little review activity, which I did not even consider a full lesson, she seemed a bit put out.
The incident the other day, though, centered around a request I had made. Despite the fact that I had about two hours of prep that morning, I had completely forgotten to make overheads until seconds before the bell rang. Because the co-teacher was in the classroom, I thought I would ask her to make the copies for me so I could set up the class. Imagine my surprise when she refused and snapped that she wasn’t an assistant. When I fumbled for words and said that I just needed her help, she said that she could help in the class. The reason why I wanted to stay in the classroom was that I had an activity up on the board and I thought that she wouldn’t be able to have it completed because this was something that we normally didn’t do in the class. Plus, the fact that I was the one who had planned the lesson meant that I knew what we were going to do in class. Luckily, there was not line at the copier, but if there had been, who knows when I would have been able to return to the classroom. Since my co-teacher had no input on the lesson plan for that day, the class probably would have ended up sitting (or talking) for at least 10 minutes. Once the class takes control like that, it’s hard to wrest it back again. When I gave an account of this incident to another teacher, she agreed that it was strange, but suggested that the other teacher probably felt like my assistant. This left me taken aback. As I mentioned earlier, she never really seemed interested in taking control of the class. Instead, I planned the lessons without any feedback from her and also engaged in much of the classroom management. Initially, she had seemed to be content with disciplining the students, too, but lately, she seems to have lost interest in that, as well. A couple of weeks ago, two male students were verbally sparring and I had to get them back under control because they were close to starting a fight. During this entire incident, the co-teacher was sitting on the computer doing something. She’s also constantly pulling one student out of the class to make him do….something so he almost always ends up missing a quiz or a homework assignment. Of course, he never bothers to make up the missed quizzes or the missed assignments.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just seeking validation for my actions, but I don’t think I deserved that kind of attitude from the co-teacher even if I am a new teacher. I later apologized and, truthfully, I was expecting her to apologize for her behavior, as well. However, she replied to my email with a terse, “Ok, thanks,” and that was it. What the hell? I was hoping that my apology would offer some form of closure, but I find myself even angrier than before.
