Here's a succinct way to explain how things are going: today while I should have been lesson planning, I found myself googling for articles and blogs about quitting teaching. Things have been discouraging lately. Two classes near completely out of control, administrator behavior that is puzzling at best, and frustrations with other teachers. Life at home has been wearying this week too, with Spouse home suffering from an ugly GI virus. This week has been the first time I have seriously thought about leaving teaching.
It's funny because I can't remember whether things like student behavior, my stress level, etc were worse last year. They might have been. But I expected last year to be hard, being my first year and all. I knew things wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows this year but I guess I thought it would be better than this. I do remember this general feeling from last year, though: it feels awful to be trying as hard as you can and still feel like a failure.
Of course I'd never leave school in the middle of the school year unless there was an imminent threat to my health, so it's not like anything would change in the short term. But I've had to remind myself that I promised myself I'd give this a 3-year effort before leaving teaching or leaving this district for a cushier suburban school or private school.
On the bright side, I do adore quite a few of my kids. I have a handful of kids coming after school to help tutor other kids... the tutees haven't been showing up but the tutors are a lot of fun to have around. And I showed the OK Go Rube Goldberg video to 3 of my classes and got a near universal oohing and ahhing over it, even from the jaded kids who hate me and my class. And I love sarcastic yet earnest L from my homeroom, R from homeroom who is a big serious teddy bear, L from second period who is too sophisticated for most things and yet laughs at my corny jokes and comes by after school to chat and help put up my chairs, J from fourth who writes cute little exclamation-point-dotted notes in the margins when she shows her work, and many more.
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