epic fail.
Of all the professions in the world, teaching seems to be one that is the most perpetually crushing.
In the past two days I have spent about 10 hours carefully grading and giving feedback to students on their papers. I'm not a grammar pen, I actually write out paragraph responses to the papers I receive. I am an excellent grader - I give impeccable feedback and practical suggestions.
This morning I handed back the papers with my comments. I had students meet with me during class about their paper topics - pointing them toward useful sources and giving them suggestions for how they could tailor their ideas to meet the requirements of this assignment.
Like any teacher I spend hours coming up with useful assignments, specific and detailed assignment sheets, solid readings, and insightful lesson plans. I stay up at nights worrying about how my students are doing, what I can do to help them better, how I can get my expectations across, whether I'm being too hard on them, not hard enough, etc.
Today I had my students complete a brief class evaluation. I had four questions:
1. How is the class going so far? Are there things you like, dislike?
2. How is the course load? Too heavy? Not strenuous enough?
3. What assignments have been useful to you? Not as useful?
4. Any suggestions for me?
I was a bit overwhelmed by the responses. How can students be so cruel? I told them to be honest, but I was still surprised by some of the responses I received. Reading these, I look like a babbling idiot standing in front of the class. One student actually said: "When you teach you're very spacey. Sometimes I'm really not sure what you're talking about at all." The student goes on to say that she thought it was just her, but that she talked to some other students in the class and they felt the same way.
Agg! Fail. Crush. Skull. Die.
What have I been doing wrong? I follow an outline when I teach, I give them detailed assignment sheets and due dates, I spend hours making my feedback clear and accessible. When we have in-class discussions, I feel like we start out with a problem or question, then we go through the texts or samples and then come up with some new insight or conclusion. I know I'm not microwave-dinner organized, but I didn't think I was really damaging my students' learning experience. Not all the students said I was disorganized, only a few did, but those that did seemed very negatively affected by it. I'm not sure what is happening - why are there a few students who don't quite connect with me? I want to help them. I want them to know what I mean, what I expect. Even when they do ask questions, I feel like all I do is tell them exactly what I said on the assignment sheets or the syllabus. Where is the disconnect happening?
I am feeling very crushed right now. I want to believe I do good by being a teacher - that I'm useful, that I'm capable enough to benefit these people who sit in my class for two hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I see the teachers I want to be like - those incredible folk who just get how to teach and I see a large, unpleasant gap between how effective I am and how effective I want to be. It's embarrassing to be ineffective. I hear the talk between students about their ineffective teachers. My pride and confidence feels utterly demolished at the moment.
So here I am. Feeling completely unmotivated to stand in front of a class ever again. And yet Friday approaches.
So sorry for the sob story. I needed to express my frustrations, my feelings of inadequacy. I know I can learn to be better, and I ought not to give up teaching simply due to a stack of fairly brutal class evaluations. It simply crushes me each time they let the critical bullets fly.
In the past two days I have spent about 10 hours carefully grading and giving feedback to students on their papers. I'm not a grammar pen, I actually write out paragraph responses to the papers I receive. I am an excellent grader - I give impeccable feedback and practical suggestions.
This morning I handed back the papers with my comments. I had students meet with me during class about their paper topics - pointing them toward useful sources and giving them suggestions for how they could tailor their ideas to meet the requirements of this assignment.
Like any teacher I spend hours coming up with useful assignments, specific and detailed assignment sheets, solid readings, and insightful lesson plans. I stay up at nights worrying about how my students are doing, what I can do to help them better, how I can get my expectations across, whether I'm being too hard on them, not hard enough, etc.
Today I had my students complete a brief class evaluation. I had four questions:
1. How is the class going so far? Are there things you like, dislike?
2. How is the course load? Too heavy? Not strenuous enough?
3. What assignments have been useful to you? Not as useful?
4. Any suggestions for me?
I was a bit overwhelmed by the responses. How can students be so cruel? I told them to be honest, but I was still surprised by some of the responses I received. Reading these, I look like a babbling idiot standing in front of the class. One student actually said: "When you teach you're very spacey. Sometimes I'm really not sure what you're talking about at all." The student goes on to say that she thought it was just her, but that she talked to some other students in the class and they felt the same way.
Agg! Fail. Crush. Skull. Die.
What have I been doing wrong? I follow an outline when I teach, I give them detailed assignment sheets and due dates, I spend hours making my feedback clear and accessible. When we have in-class discussions, I feel like we start out with a problem or question, then we go through the texts or samples and then come up with some new insight or conclusion. I know I'm not microwave-dinner organized, but I didn't think I was really damaging my students' learning experience. Not all the students said I was disorganized, only a few did, but those that did seemed very negatively affected by it. I'm not sure what is happening - why are there a few students who don't quite connect with me? I want to help them. I want them to know what I mean, what I expect. Even when they do ask questions, I feel like all I do is tell them exactly what I said on the assignment sheets or the syllabus. Where is the disconnect happening?
I am feeling very crushed right now. I want to believe I do good by being a teacher - that I'm useful, that I'm capable enough to benefit these people who sit in my class for two hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I see the teachers I want to be like - those incredible folk who just get how to teach and I see a large, unpleasant gap between how effective I am and how effective I want to be. It's embarrassing to be ineffective. I hear the talk between students about their ineffective teachers. My pride and confidence feels utterly demolished at the moment.
So here I am. Feeling completely unmotivated to stand in front of a class ever again. And yet Friday approaches.
So sorry for the sob story. I needed to express my frustrations, my feelings of inadequacy. I know I can learn to be better, and I ought not to give up teaching simply due to a stack of fairly brutal class evaluations. It simply crushes me each time they let the critical bullets fly.