I fall easily to pessimism. I generally expect the worst to happen just so I can be surprised and relieved when it doesn't because I HATE being let down. I can't stand to get excited about something and not have it work out the way I want. I guess that probably makes me a somewhat normal person, but it does send me into an especially severe downward spiral when I expect something is going to happen and it doesn't. #control freak
The one area of my life, however, where I am not a pessimist is with my students. People make jokes to me all the time about me being a teacher that watched too many movies where a person comes in to a school and works a miracle, turning the school around and winning the trust and love of what others think are crappy kids. It's true. "To Sir with Love" and "Dead Poet's Society," mixed with a lot of liberal guilt made me want to teach. I do walk around my classroom assuming that all my kids are going to go to college and lead better lives than their parents are, even though subconsciously I know that a lot of them won't. My conscious naïveté has bought me a lot of respect from them. Until last week.
Last week was horrible. The proverbial stars were not aligned whatsoever. One of my favorite kids got caught drinking in the bathroom and trafficking it to others and is now getting expelled, another's father committed suicide, there were stupid fights and drama going on everywhere. On top of that I was teaching them how to write an argument paper and most of them chose really heavy topics like abortion and gay marriage so that weighed me down (mostly because I had to bite my tongue to the ones that were taking the position opposite mine) and several of them didn't want to write papers because they realized it was something they would have to do on their own and not in a group. The backlash was serious and it was a week-long game of "Whack-a-Mole."
I was wandering around the hall, looking especially dejected, when a co-worker asked me if I was alright. I don't know her well, but I just took the opportunity to unload. I confessed that I felt like a terrible teacher because some of my students weren't understanding their paper and didn't want to write it (what 14 year old does, though?) and that behavior in general sucked. She gave me a long lecture about how all young teachers are idealists and I need to realize that I can't save everyone. Some kids will slip through the cracks and I can't do anything about it. They don't want to work, they will get left behind and that's the way it is. You just have to focus on the ones that will make it. So what did I do? I bought it. It took a lot less mental energy to concede that things were bigger than me. Free at last!
Then I paid for it double the next 2 days. They went from worse than normal to bad. Kids that never misbehaved with me were acting like giant jerks. It felt like no one was working, everyone was commenting on how Fromm is being a real "B" and I found myself saying things that I normally would never say. I became miserable and seriously considered another job. Then I realized something: things were just "uncomfortable" and the discomfort was all related to situations outside my classroom until I decided to adopt the mentality that some of these kids suck and always will and I can't stop it. Then it became unbearable.
My pessimistic inclinations really screwed me and I felt terrible about it. So what does a good teacher do to win back her kids? Well, she would probably talk ad-nauseum about how she messed up and is human so she makes mistakes and apologize, but I just went and bought a bunch of star crunch and a movie and planned on winning them back through bribery. I thanked them for working so hard all week and explained that I know it's difficult to write an argument paper and made a deal that if they work hard for an hour, I'd hype them up on processed sugary snacks and watch part of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Worked like a charm. We were all back to our old selves and in the middle of practical jokes and class discussions about random topics, nearly all of them met the goal that I had set for the day. Thank God 8th graders are so easily bought. (Herman Cain, I know you're reading this. Don't get any ideas).
I learned a very important lesson about how to not become a burned-out, grumpy old hag before I really do move on to another career. I should say that the teacher with whom I had the discussion that temporarily converted me to what is probably realistic is great at her job but I personally have to pretend that I'm a super-hero to enjoy what I do. I'll keep pretending and hopefully the young minds to which I am entrusted continue to believe it.
No comments:
Post a Comment