I am so frustrated. It is ... hard to believe how ... frustrated I get ... And then a few minutes later, I sweep it to the side, forgive myself, move on and try to do better the next time, the next few minutes. Something happens in my class and I know, deep down, that things have switched from on-task to off-task, from functional to dysfunctional.
I sweep it to the side and start surfing facebook or some other crap online. But just now I had this thought: that on a regular basis, what I model for my students is very similar to what most of my teachers modeled for me, which is this: An unsatisfactory life. I seem frustrated. I seem incapable of taking control--in a place where I am supposed to be in control.
And you know what I think? I think to some extent I CHOOSE to be ineffective, because a certain level of ineffectiveness is accepted, or even encouraged, in our society. Like, I just look like I'm trying my best and that's what most people want. Just be a nice guy, don't stir too much shit up, and I'll fit in.
Did you hear the hint of excuse-making in that statement: it's encouraged in our society! What, it's not me--it's our society!
The frustration is in the lies I tell myself constantly that go along with society's lies. I tell myself that I am doing just fine, that I'm doing the best I can, that I'm a good guy ... But appearing to be all of the above is NOT good if I'm capable of more. An inept-but-well-intentioned person is a good person. A person who pretends to be inept-but-well-intentioned, but who is capable of more ... is ... something else.
The lies I tell myself: That my students are disrespectful, or irresponsible, or incapable. That I have to control them better ...
Geometry went well today, or well-ish. What went well about Geometry was that the class was well-structured. There was some teaching and then there was some discovery. And there was about the right amount of each, and then about the right amount of homework. There were too many off-task students during the discovery, but I did re-direct, and ... pretty good class.
On the other hand, Algebra ... the lesson was ... the lesson went poorly. I used this worksheet given to me by a colleague to teach point-slope form, but I wasn't really teaching much of anything. It's like ... if I fail to have any ... if I fail to zoom out enough to the larger concept, then I'm just teaching some random formula and there's no motivation to learn it .
So, the Algebra lesson wasn't very good, and when that's the case, that fact kind of hits me in the mouth while I'm up there teaching it. I see the uninspired students, the "this sucks" body language. One student, the manic one who can't stop talking, is peppering me with questions, and I'm not telling him to shut up because I'm relieved to have someone to interact with--I'm letting that one person talk me into the idea that this lesson isn't a total lost cause, when it is--it really is a lost cause.
Or it may not even be a lost cause, but it at least needs to be approached differently. But since my confidence in it is so low, I am interacting with one student in a way that shuts out the rest of the class, in the way that the worst teachers do, when shutting down that student might give me the presence of mind to talk to the whole class and take apart the lesson in a way that makes it meaningful--that is, I could save the bad lesson in the moment if I'd just catch that imbalance in the class dynamic and correct it.
But I fail to do so. The lesson dissintegrates without any student interest to keep it alive, and so by the time I distribute the practice, there is a tangible frustration, almost a class-wide uncertainty about whether to actually go forward and do any of the crap that this guy (me) is handing out. There is a sense that I am clearly out of it, clearly not doing my job right, and almost everybody would agree in that moment. I want to disappear into the floorboards; I want to disappear into the ether.
And then I see that SOMEBODY has to say something, and it occurs to me that the only thing to do is to meet the stultifying crappy moment with enthusiasm, to rally the troops with the only thing I have left, my voice, my energy, all I've got. "Come on, let's get going, move your desks together, work with your partner!"
And so it goes. During the activity, a lot of them are off-task, and I start to get annoyed with them. I tell myself that they are not hard-working enough, or disciplined enough, that they ought to be better. I tell myself that this is why I am frustrated, that this is the whole reason for my frustration. Of course that's wrong. I'm frustrated because I planned and executed a crappy lesson. That's the whole reason. I feel frustrated about it, so to avoid those feelings I try blaming others.
Signing out ...
No comments:
Post a Comment