Helpless

Well, I royally screwed up today. It didn't hit me until the day was over and now I feel just awful. I haven't accomplished anything since school ended because I just feel so bad and I want to fix it but I just...I just don't know how. I wish that I could process things quicker...and I wish that I didn't want to fix things so quickly that I...

Well, this is for me to reflect on my day and I don't really know how to reflect. My mind has been this much for the last 2 1/2 hours. All I know is that I feel really bad and I don't know what to do. I went to go see if Rob was around, but he was already gone and so then I just packed up and came home, thinking just maybe Jessica would be home. It's like, I just need advice. But, Jessica, as is now usual, is not home and so when I realized she wasn't home and I couldn't work this out with someone I just started crying. I only cry when I hit the helpless state.

My first period has been disengaged for a few weeks now. Lately they don't even seem to try. To me it looks like they are not engaged, they don't try to be, and that they don't think or spend any time trying to go beyond the surface of the issues we look at. I realized that it could just be morning, but to me it just seemed like they were being lazy. Today it came to a head when we had a scored discussion and everyone just stared in front of them. I had to step in and basically prompt them to make certain statements. I was so frustrated. They finished 20 minutes early and I couldn't find any way to get them to the points they needed to hit without spoon-feeding them.

When we finished I talked to them about it. I tried to ask them why the class does these things, tried to explain what I saw, and told them that I was at a loss as to what to do to get them to think about these things. I just needed some explanations. The kids were confused and then some of them angry. They thought they were doing fine. They didn't know what they needed to change and I apparently was not explaining it well enough. I asked them to write a reflection for me on why their class was not engaging, what caused it? It was a disaster. The kids were frustrated, I almost cried in class, and...well, anyway.

The reflections revealed a lot. I now have some things that I can see we need to work on. AFter school I compiled the reasons and analyzed them and added questions for the kids for what we should do about this stuff. But then...I looked at the other comments and I just started to cry. I managed to hold the tears until I got home but I collapsed on my desk once I realized what I had done and that I don't know how to get myself out of it.

Basically, when I talked to them about it I just wanted to understand them and what they saw but how they interpreted it was that I was disappointed in them and that they thought I wanted them to change and that I was unfairly comparing them to other periods. The thing is, they were right. I did unfairly compare them, because they were asking me for examples and I was struggling to find one. I had been struggling with this class for weeks and thought I was ready to address it, especially with all the extra time, but I was not. I unfairly compared them. I made them feel bad about themselves and brought up a topic that I wanted them to explain when I couldn't even explain it myself.

So now, I don't want to go to first period tomorrow because I don't know what to do. I've thought about what to say to them but it's such a mess. I could show them the conclusions I found and ask them about the questions still to answer. I could apologize for the comparison and try to explain what I was trying to accomplish, and let them know that I obviously failed in what I was trying to say but if I say that I feel like I should try to explain it again and I still don't know how to do it/say it!

I've hurt their feelings and probably made them feel uncomfortable in my classroom and I don't know how to fix that. I want them to know that I don't want them to be something they're not...but I just want to know what they are and where they're struggling. But by trying to figure out where they are at and get a little understanding all I did was make my students feel like failures and I don't know where to go from here.

I hate that I made my students feel bad about themselves. We're both helpless in this situation and neither of us knows what to do...and I'm supposed to be the one who knows what to do.

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