Teaching for me is a passion. It's something that I wake up in the morning and I crave. But like anything else, sometimes it's just work. We had a substitute today, so Erika (the student teacher in my room, who co-teaches with me) were running the show. We were in day 2 of a huge Grammar unit, which sucks for us and them. So were thrown into this unit with a bunch of 8th graders and our big plans for the day our 2 pre-tests, a worksheet and a video. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more fun guess what, the video doesn't work, our co-op leaves us a note saying instead of watching the video we'll just present the answers to the worksheet that they would have filled out while watching. So we have this lesson plan thats not fun and and we have really no interest in teaching but we have on saving grace. A brainteaser activity we pulled up that allowed them to get up and move around and have a little fun. And for the first two periods that was enough. The kids actually had a decent time all things considering, we had a bunch of digressions- talking about everything from college life to Destiny's child, but we got all done and no one gauged their eyes out. The came that one pd. The class that can't sit stil that loves to shout across the room and cannot neither take notes quietly or digress and return to the topic successfully. They took one look at the substitute and I knew it was game over. The rest of the class was an uphill battle in a canoe. Me trying every method i can think of to bring them back. There were small successes followed by immediate and colossal reverses and by the end of the period we had finished half of the work of the other classes, questions of legitimate students when unanswered and my sails were at the bottom of the ocean.
Ultimately I don't hold it against them. I used to be those kids. Hassling the sub, having too much fun. But it still really sucks to stand in front of a room of 25 kids and believe there's really nothing I can do to turn it around. After this I was just tired. I sat through my classes at MU and thought about what I could do to change it, without sacrificing my teaching persona, and honestly I came up with nothing, All I was, was tired. Sometimes I feel so untouchable, like I can face anything the class throws at me and I'm a dynamite teacher, yada yada. But I'm not, and I probably never well be. Because when you have all the answers and every day is problem free it means you're not learning and their not learning. Somedays it's gonna feel like work, other days im going to be on cloud 9. But what matters is the passion. As long as I have that I don't need all the answers, nor do I want them.
"The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." John Steinback The Grapes of Wrath
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