Greetings, my dear readers (those of you who are left). I have returned from my travels with tales that will delight the mind and invigorate the imagination.Alternatively, I may have simply been busy beyond all belief and haven't taken the time to make a blog entry in forever.
Yeah, I'm going to go with the second option.
In the last two months, I've started student teaching, taken three graduate courses, found a girlfriend, lost a girlfriend, gone skiing twice, gotten drunk quite a few times, chaperoned a trip to see Grease, witnessed the Winter Warlock raping the world, graded more student papers than I'd care to admit, battled the head cold from hell for a week and a half, and pulled Excalibur from the stone. It's been a busy stretch of time.
The big time commitment this semester has been, of course, student teaching. I knew that teaching would become a huge time commitment this semester, but I wasn't truly prepared for just how incredibly overwhelming the task could be. Although I started out by taking over one of my mentor teacher's periods each week, I now have her full schedule - five ninth-grade honors English classes and two ninth-grade inclusion classes. I plan every lesson, and I grade about half of the workload (my mentor teacher handling the other half). Additionally, every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night, I have my own classes at Pitt. Right now, there are three major tasks that I have to complete while I'm typing this, so feel privileged that I've placed your needs over those of ninth graders who have a troubling sense of entitlement.
Honestly, I feel like I'm doing a damned good job at this student teaching gig. My mentor teacher seems to think so as well. Teachers who pass by the room while I'm teaching tell me that I seem to have an excellent command of the class. And yet, whenever I go to my classes at Pitt, I'm constantly made to feel like I'm not doing enough. What about that one student that I'm not reaching? How could I be differentiating the instruction just a little bit more? Couldn't there be more variety in my teaching styles? How could the students be further engaged?
Despite the mountain of lavish praise that's so deservingly heaped upon me, I never think I'm doing a good enough job. There's always something being overlooked. Perhaps I'm not accounting for the kid who needs a more tactile lesson. Maybe I didn't need to snap at that little darling who kept kicking the girl in front of him. There's always something. I once talked to my mentor about this, and she said that you have to accept your failures and move on. She told me that she's witnessed countless promising teachers wash out in their first three years because they try to do far too much and end up having a nervous breakdown.
This is a new level of mental dilemma for me. Usually I have extremely angsty existential crises where I contemplate the various bad life choices that I've made while lamenting the world's constant attempts to laugh at my failures. But this new problem - caring about shit that I can't control - well, that just plain sucks. Sometimes there are practical consequences. For example, there's one creepy little bastard in my one inclusion class who sits in class every day giving me an alarmingly evil death glare. He never says anything or does anything wrong - he just stares... those dead eyes piercing the fiber of my soul. This kid also never does any of his work, and he never brings anything to class. He's never said or done anything explicitly threatening... he's just weird and scary as hell. Now, should I be reaching out to this kid? I've tried. The last time I encouraged him to work, he responded, "Do you like to shoot cocaine, Mr. P?" Another time I said something to him about his writing, he replied, "I read cereal boxes and then light them on fire." One time we were doing a little artsy class project, and Creepy Kid spent twenty minutes closely examining a pair of scissors. Nothing happened, but I want to know what was going on in that twisted brain of his.
There are times, though, where my students offer new psychological insights into myself. On one very memorable occasion, I was explaining the homework for my last honors class one day, and the class was complaining about having no time to do it that night. "We have sports to go to, Mr. P," they wailed. "We don't have time." So I replied, "Well I have class tonight, but I still have to make lesson plans and do my own homework." And this one girl - this bubbly, cheery girl with this sickeningly syrupy attitude - says, "Yeah, but you're OLD, Mr. P. You're life is over. You have no future."
I have to admit... that one stung a little bit. Sincerity hurts.
I have other stories. I'll try to be more prolific in the future.
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"Are you saying I'm a liar?"
"No, I'm saying you're an optimist. Same thing, really."
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