As a teacher I learned early on to separate my personal feelings from my public reactions in the classroom. Often teachers may raise their voice, smile or lecture without any actual personal emotion. The students perceive anger, disappointment, excitement or enthusiasm where there is actually nothing, or much less than what is presented. It is a necessary skill. For a couple of reasons really. One is that if I really had that much emotion running amok in my classroom all the time I would pass out. Two is that no matter how angry the child may perceive you as being you are always completely in control of yourself and being in control of yourself as a teacher is critical to professional and personal survival. But here is the problem.
It also gives you the ability to stand back and look at yourself as you encourage or correct a student. This time of year, when the corrections are more frequent than the encouragements, it is easy to really start to dislike yourself as a teacher. Intellectually I know I have to be consistent and firm with my students. This builds discipline and character. Emotionally I feel like a witch from the seventh circle of hell. It's always the same kids at this point too. If I give up on them they don't learn and fail. If I keep after them I feel like a jerk and they will still probably fail anyway. For that 1% success rate I am currently trashing my self esteem to get them through school.
That's why I make the big bucks....
(I'm not actually depressed, this happens every year and is no fun, but I have perspective, I'm just saying...)
20 Days and counting.
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4 comments:
At my office I used to teach a couple of classes in Access and Excel. I'd do these once or twice a quarter, but I finally had to quit doing it because even if 99% of the class understood and "got it", I'd beat on myself about the 1% that didn’t.
I know for a fact that I could never do what you do. Teachers in general are amazing, and ninth grade teachers are – well, nuts! I wouldn't go in that room without a whip, chair, teargas and a couple of bodyguards!
What you do is simply impressive.
It's funny you should mention that. I've asked to be allowed to have a whip, and teargas, but my administrator keeps telling me no...
Duct tape and bungee cords?
We just pulled our 7th grade special ed student out of school to homes school for the remainder of the 22 days of school.
Frustrated, being the daughter of 2 special ed teachers, I was ready to pull my hair out.
Not understanding how his grades could be so bad ...it took me a while to realize that I was not dealing with teachers like you.
When you have administrators on your side and teachers telling your child (and admitting it in front of you and administrators) that "I will make this the most miserable year of your life"
something is amiss ...
excuse me? Um .. these are special ed junior high boys you're talking to ... can you make them any more discouraged?
He's failing. 48% GPA. It's my fault of coarse, if his home life was better the teachers wouldn't have such a hard time.
(they are not following his IEP, nor do they intend to ...the quote "We modify for the entire classroom, not for any one individual child" was made ..huh?)
When he started to be bullied to the point that the police got involved ... homeschooling became a serious consideration ... for safety concerns as well as academic.
While weighing it out Monday, I sat in the principal's office ... he said "while considering it, you might take this into consideration" He handed me statistics that will be printed in the next newsletter ... grade point averages for each and every school in the district, with the IEP kids, ESL kids and another group each listed into seperate groups.
Children under an IEP in the 6th through 8th grade have a GPA average of 41%
uh ... er ... snap went the final straw.
Thank you, I'll take my son home now.
We're fighting to get them to keep my son from failing and he's failing at a higher GPA than the average IEP'd child is!
ARGH!
I love good teachers! I think we should pay them what baseball players make... but the bad apples (like your principal that left) can drive a person to the brink of insanity!
Why DO people like this get into education? It's certainly not the pay!
They can't possibly like children.
I read your post below about kids not trying (and your exclusion of kids with struggles). I can tell the kind of teacher you are.
My older son (10th grade) has had 12 teachers at the high school ...all but 2 have been great, and the one ..she whines ... the other one ..criminal charges are being filed against her.
:(
I hope your last 20 days go smoothly and the kids settle down ..at least enough to keep some sanity!
I'm rambling, so I'll shut up now.
You have a tough job! Kudos to you for hanging in there and doing the right thing.
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