Sunday Morning Musings

I haven't been doing a great job as a teacher. In fact, I would rate myself quite low on the scales of compassion, effectiveness, and effort. They tell you at the very start - "the first year will be life-altering. Do not give up, though. It will get better."

It has become very clear to me that students feed off of the teacher's mood. One of the first things I remember writing down in teaching internship was a silly proverb spoken by one of my favorite (albeit annoyingly sentimental) professors. Your mood determines the weather of the classroom. Now, I am not a fan of proverbs unless they are the kind listed somewhere between Psalms and Isaiah. But for some reason this little saying stuck with me, and now it applies more than ever. The weather here has been drearily cold, and that is translating a little to clearly inside my classroom. I have become that cold teacher who would rather be taking a nap or reading a book than waxing poetic on the uses of punctuation in newspaper articles versus academic writing (yes, there is a difference).

I want...no...I desire and pray to be different. My attitude is in no way conducive to the development of these students. And although their less-than-positive attitudes are extremely frustrating, my job is to teach them. My job is to teach them.

In the beginning of my internship I thought that teaching was my true calling. I would spend days crafting the perfect lesson plan - anticipatory set, introduction, lecture, activities, reflection, and conclusion. I introduced Robert Frost into a lesson about The Outsiders. I spent an entire weekend making feather-laden masks for the masquerade scene in Much Ado About Nothing. One time I even climbed atop a desk to recite Hamlet's famous "to be, or not to be" soliloquy. But that was the fantasy world of internship, where I was not exposed to the piles and piles of administrative paperwork (absentee forms, absentee homework sheets, monthly curriculum reports, weekly lesson plans, professional development forms, supply request forms, yearly curriculum guides, student discipline forms, parent communication forms, homeroom activity requests, substitute request forms, IEP forms, 504 plans, evidence of modification forms, etc.). There are so many other things I wasn't aware of - discontent within the faculty and administration, student discipline requirements, a lack of basic classroom supplies, the overwhelming bias toward student athletes...the list goes on and on.

I think, and this is just a passing thought, that if teaching were about teaching, then I would thrive as a teacher. But only a small percentage of my profession is actually reliant on the interaction between myself and my students during that 45-minute slot we have together each day. I want to be a good teacher, and more than that, the students deserve to have a good teacher. If I truly do control the weather in my class, then someone needs to help me fix my thermostat.