Caution: Identity Crisis Ahead

Sometimes I feel like such a girl. It's like my emotions are out of my control and they go up and down even when I don't want them to. Lately life has been pretty good, other than the extreme nervousness associated with a new class, I've been making much more time for myself this year and even though I still work long hours, I find time for my TV shows and random audio books and art classes. However, it was bound to catch up to me. I don't really know why I am so emotional tonight but I am in definite need of reflection.

So the day started off fairly well. I did no work last night, which was good and bad. I watched Monte Python's Flying Circus for a few hours and surfed the net and talked to Lindsey Walker for another hour or so. I'll get to that later. I was in such a good mood. I really needed that time to just lie in bed and be a bum. Then I woke up early this morning humming and feeling refreshed. I slept in a little, got coffee, did my hair (!), and got to school feeling very much on top of the world. Wednesday had gone better than expected and today was the same.

1) My lessons were great.
2) My freshmen classes were amazing today, the kids are awesome, and I feel like I'm already beginning to know them AND I already know all their names!!! Go me! That's pretty good, 80 names in a day! I finished my two freshmen classes today and i was stoked!! They are so great! I was so excited because the classes so far are just awesome. 4th worries me a bit...but hopefully that will pan out ok.
3) Then, Gov was mixed, but overall good. My lesson was great. The kids were into it, it was just...it was like clockwork and the kids cooperated for the most part. AND, I got to practice my tech-guru-ness. I used my clickers, my document camera and my laptop, AND my SmartBoard software and hooked them all up to toggle back and forth without having to rewire anything. I was quite proud and my students were quite impressed. But the one worry from that period has since then welled up into an issue, which I will get to.

So, the last two days have been triumphant!!! Good lessons!! Kids engaged!!

So why am I upset?

It could have something to do with the fact that I am short on sleep...or that I was at school until 9:00...but...I dunno.

So, I was at school until 9:00 because I was chaperoning the Invisible Children Club's screening of Invisible Children. I worked all afternoon, got a bunch of things done, while my Knowledge Bowl kids joked away for a few hours. For a while though, I was quite thoughtful.

I have a problem with my seniors. They are not learning. It is my fault (and theirs) but a lot of it is mine. Either they are not reading, or they are not reading thoroughly enough, or I'm assigning too much reading and not doing enough tying together of information. Whatever it is, the learning is just not happening. That upset me, for obvious reasons. But why it upset me was more than just that I was not doing my job as a teacher, but that I honestly was at a loss as to what the do. I FEEL SO MUCH PRESSURE!!! Sheesh. Shultz's classes are a week ahead of us. He knows more than I do, they cover more than we do, his kids get higher test scores, and he is assessing them every day with quizzes. There is that pressure on the one hand, and then there is the pressure that I feel on the other hand that even when I try to keep up with Shultz and do what he does, my students aren't learning it like his seem to be!! In my mind, it's because it's not becoming meaningful, it's just information. But what makes me so upset is that I don't know where the balance is. I don't know whether to spend more time to make at least some of it stick, or to keep doing what we're doing and expect them to study in the end.

Seriously though, I don't know how I became such a crappy teacher over the course of a year. Last year I was exhausted and I didn't know much, but at least what I taught was good. It seems like the more time I teach, the more time I spend informing myself and putting information together for my students, but somewhere along the 1 freaking year I forgot how to teach!!!! It pisses me off! When I sit down to plan I'm lost!! I honestly get overwhelmed just trying to remember how to teach well. I get scared because I feel helpless and then I freak out. So, let's say I decide to forget Shultz and just make the minimal meaningful. That's the sucky part...I DON'T REMEMBER HOW!!!

Ok, so anyway...that was in the background...well, the dilemma of my students not learning and not knowing whether to go fast or slow...the rest came later.

So I go down to help Marissa and Katherine set up for the screening. They show me how to use the light panel in the theater, I chat with some of my kids...and then I hear things.

1) Katherine says, "Ms. Burdick, that was a really good lesson today." (earlier Tommy asked, "Did you go to some workshop or something because today you're using all these new teaching strategies?"). That should make me feel good...but it didn't. I wrote that lesson last year. It was a good lesson. That was the lesson that made me keep my job. It bothered me that this one lesson had stood out, because to me that meant that all my other lessons are not good...which I knew...but had not wanted to think about. Katherine didn't mean anything by it, but it just confirmed what I had been thinking, that I don't teach well anymore and that I wish that I could teach like that all the time. This phrase kept running through my head while we were talking (see, I can teach well when I have the time to put into it) and yet...I would never be able to put together a lesson like that now. I felt like such a failure that one lesson could stand out so much to my students...and frustrated that I don't have the time or skills to do it anymore...and that I don't have the class time before that darn AP Exam to cover what I need to and to make it meaningful.

2) I mentioned the dilemma I was in that afternoon to Marissa, Katherine, and Will. About how Shultz's class is so far ahead of us and that it is a pressure for me to fly through material. These three, and earlier Natty, said the same thing...which I probably shouldn't have listened to, but did. All Shultz's kids hate his class. They cheat on his tests. THey don't feel like they're learning anything. BUT...they are covering more material...he's more knowledgable than I am...and his kids have GOT to be learning more than mine. Ok, my tests are hard, so it's not a surprise that my students don't do well, but sometimes...I ask them things that should be simple...basic things...and they don't know. And then I cringe...ARE THEY LEARNING ANYTHING!?! But this is dilemma 2. Knowing what the kids said about the other classes, should I even worry about trying to keep up with Shultz. Are my kids cheating too? Are Shultz's kids doing well on tests because they are learning more, or because they're cheating? In the end, my kids like me better and they like my class better, but does that matter if they're not learning!? AND WHY IS IT THAT THIS IS MY SECOND TIME TEACHING AND I FEEL LIKE I'M DOING A WORSE JOB THAN THE FIRST TIME AROUND?!?!

3. I watched Invisible Children. I couldn't cry in the theater because my kids were there. But I HATE to see children suffering. I HATE it. I cry at radio commercials from SleepCountry about helping foster children. When I left the theatre I was having an identity crisis. I thought...how horrible. And I felt helpless. I felt this unease and weariness. I felt like somehow my life was a waste. I felt like life was passing me by, like I was young and able to help people but stuck trying to do something that I've gotten lost in. I felt like I wanted to be really DOING something. I thought of college and how friends have gone all over the world doing good things. Like they have a mission. And I don't want to hear any crap about how I have my mission, about how I'm teaching and I'm changing the world that way...because right now, that's all a bunch of crap. As I left that theatre, I felt like I have wasted my young, unattached years and that all the world-changing youthfulness, the adventure and meaning has just...I don't know...faded, I guess.

Last night Lindsey and I talked about getting an 'around the world' ticket. Apparently you can plug in all these cities and buy a plane ticket to take you around the world, to be used in a certain span of time, and you can fly to all the cities you picked, whenever you want. And as I walked out of that theatre...I wondered why I didn't just drop what I was doing and get a ticked for going around the world, traveling with a friend, being free, and doing good wherever I went. Or why didn't I have a mission that felt like....eh...I just can't write anymore.

Suffice it to say that the combination of long hours, one good lesson, the surprised comments from my students, the abysmal test scores, and the emotions from Invisible Children combined to make me feel like a failure.

And the saddest part, is that I'm too tired, discouraged and lost to make my teaching much better.

Reflection: I know my students like me...I know they don't care if they're not learning as much as they should...but I care. And I care that I can't remember or get overwhelmed when trying to teach well. I care that I feel like a young person, trapped in the mind of a 40-year-old, trapped in the body of a young person. And I don't want to hear any crap about how I just can't see what I'm doing. You are not in my classroom every day. You can not say that I am changing students lives. Perhaps, by the end of the year I will have bonded enough with my seniors to make it meaningful...but man...eh....

Maybe if I took ANOTHER day off...this time not to grade...but to remember how to make good lessons...I will feel confident again and my students will get another burst of life...

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