life and teaching
I guess everyone's job is like that. There is life and then there is work. The odd thing about teaching is that the line of separation is so flexible it bends and molds and sometimes disappears altogether. Sometimes I feel like things would be easier if I lived in my classroom. I have a sink, theres a bathroom across the hall, a refrigerator down the hall and to the left that always has food, and a computer. Really what more do you need aside from a bed...I could bring that in and disguise it as a couch. There have been days when I think that I would be better off staying here 24/7. Its nuts I know. Most of the time this desire is also accompanied by an intense need to leave immediately. I wonder if this is normal. Even when I do leave I still think about my kids. While I eat I think about my kids. While watching tv I'm planning next week's math lessons in my head. It NEVER ends. With so much to do today after school (right now) I'm sitting at the only working computer in my room wondering where I should start. The lights are off and the music is on to drown out the trombones next door that still manage to sound more like foghorns than anything else. And its only Thursday. At least its Thursday. I sat down to clear my head and realized that I really have very little to say. Or maybe I have too much to say. I can't tell. I don't know anymore. Every weekend I plan in a planbook that I never even take out of my bag during the day. Its amazing how much of teaching is in your head. There is no time to walk over and look at what is next. Teaching is like an all day oral presentation. Every day you are on stage and you pray to God that you remember your lines. The second that you don't a second of instructional time is lost, and students' minds start to wander. Then Dennis is biting his water bottle like a dog, Josh and Doug are fighting over the right to go to the bathroom, Patrick has fallen out of his chair, and Ryan is watching the ceiling while while drinking his water, one drop at a time. As you try to get those students back under control while remembering what the hell you had to say in the first place, Erica draws a face on her hand, and Brian has made a noise that makes everyone erupt into laughter. Its those moments that make me really want to go over to my desk in my own little corner of the room (they have successfully taken over the rest) and ake a nap. When you enter this profession you have grand ideas and big plans. You can do it better than anyone who has ever taught before you. You are going to be the teacher who influences the 63rd president of the united states who never even thought of doing anything with his life until he had you as a teacher. You're going to be the safe haven for the kid whose homelife is too horrible for him to even talk about. You have strategies to make everyone fit in and be successful in your classroom. Inclusion is a good thing and differentiation is totally doable in everything that you do. Its February of my first year, and I feel like all of my big plans are getting shoved to the side. To accomplish all of that you need to be able to teach the kids, and to teach the kids you and they all need to be able to rise above what happened at home that morning, on the busride to school, or last night at home. You need to forget about the meeting that you don't want to go to right after school, or the basketball game that they are SO excited for, or the parent phone call you got as you walked into school that morning. To teach someone something is easy when they are ready and willing to learn it. When they have a clear head. When they are focused. But when medication is missed and mom is in the hospital and your little sister wrote on your homework and your cat sat on your project and you can't see your dad because he might take off with you and your stepdad is fighting a war across the world, its tough. When you throw up in the bathroom and refuse to eat lunch because somewhere you got the idea that you're fat. When you misbehave because you like a girl in class and have no idea what to do about it. I understand its hard to learn under those circumstances...I do. Sometimes I feel like the negative outweighs the positive. Like I'm fighting a losing battle. I wonder how things will be for them in high school. Instead of reaching out and molding a future president, I could be helping to shape the mind of a future felon. Its an interesting thought that I feel guilty even having, but honestly sometimes I wonder. I guess we do reach people. My teachers reached me. Well, some of them. Everyone has positive and negative stories about teachers, which is good. As a profession, we are having an impact. It makes it hard though because you can never just be a teacher and then talk about something else. People find out and they're off and running. Stories come out about their own fourth grade experience and their long lost aunt who teaches and their college days where they inevitably at some point considered teaching. You say you're an accountant and then people are willing to move on. There are no stories about considering becoming an accountant because most people who considered it are one. I don't understand why people have such an incredible fascination with teaching. Its like your some sort of mini-celebrity...fifteen minutes of fame every time you meet someone new. They want to share all of that useless information with you for some reason. Some days its fine. On days like today I just want to look at them and instead of saying I'm a teacher I want to say I'm a bad teacher. I'm a horrible rotten mean fourth grade teacher. Somehow I think my kids would disagree. They bounce back quicker than I do...in fact, they bounce back and off of pretty much whatever they are faced with, including the walls. Tomorrow is another day and thinking about tomorrow gives me that neverending hope that maybe tomorrow will be the defining moment. The turning point. The day that each of them remembers for the rest of their lives. Today is "in the books" but tomorrow is another day. Another chance. Another shot at affecting the lives of 21 fourth graders. We'll see...