not a machine

It's horribly negative, I know.  You've just got to go with what you're feeling, though. 

In which I learn my lesson. 

As I drifted into my final semester of college, I started worrying about what I was going to do with my life.  I'd always had a thought that maybe I'd like teaching, and I'd even majored in education for a semester or so, only abandoning it because I felt like I ought to be taking more English classes.  I was part of the SMBHC, which has a service requirement.  I ended up doing some work for Ben, and really liking the idea of MTC.  Being completely aimless, and having at some point mentioned it to my mother (who remembers everything), I ended up applying and somehow getting accepted. 

I had just broken up with a long-ish-term boyfriend and moved into my folks' house at the end of the semester, so I decided to minimize the moving and stay there for the summer, as well.  As a result, I felt a bit disconnected from the rest of my class, which was amplified by my neurotic, reclusive, introspective nature.  I enjoyed summer school, the classes and the teaching, though it gave me no realistic idea of how I would do in a real school with real classes. 

I started at Jim Hill, which had just lost both Dave Molina and Jake Roth, MTC's wunderkinder.  Big shoes to fill (I didn't even start).  It wasn't completely horrible.  I don't think I cried over my students or the situation too frequently (I think.  I may have blocked some of this out), though I certainly did so a few times, at least.  The students say "scraw" for "straw" and "murk" for "milk".  Oddly enough, this has only started to annoy me lately. 

Back to the story.  I seriously thought about quitting my job and dropping out of MTC more in the last half of the year than the first, and I decided not to after the summer between my first and second years.  Don't ask me why.  I think it was the computer.  I certainly don't give two ****s about the Master's degree.  During the first half of my second year, I think maybe I was more miserable than during my first year.  Memories tend to be a bit warped, though, so who knows.  By halfway through the first semester, I was trying to figure out how I'd support myself when I quit at Christmas.  Somehow, I didn't end up doing it.  Somehow.  I'm not sure that this was a good decision. 

So.  Here we are.  Three weeks til the end of school.  Three weeks til freedom.  I think I have quite a few sick days left, and I'm thinking maybe I'll use them all.  Now, I realize that this blog post is ridiculously pessimistic, and maybe that's a byproduct of state test week, where the administration sticks the teachers in rooms with groups of students for 5-7 hour stretches.  We get our first and fifth block classes.  My first block class is about 30 kids, usually.  I've been stuck with them for 5 hours, 45 minutes so far.  I've had about ten minutes to myself to warm up my lunch and use the bathroom.  I want them to disappear.  At this point, I don't care where. 

I'm a bad teacher.  I lose my temper (more frequently lately).  I give up easily.  I'm inconsistent.  I don't follow up on things.  I'm a bad yeller (as in, my voice doesn't carry).  I frequently have the urge to smack students around.  Thankfully, I haven't acted on that one.  Yet.  At this point, it might just be a matter of time.  This is another good reason for me to use those sick days.  I often feel like I'm trying to herd chickens.  Not that I know how to herd chickens.  Once though, in my pre-vegetarian days, I helped my uncle and cousins catch someone's 4-H chickens and stuff them in crates to be butchered.  That was a piece of cake, compared to teaching. 

So, next year, I plan to have a 9-5 job where no more than a few people really depend on me each day, where I don't have to take any work home, where I speak with my superiors more than once a month, where expectations are clear-cut and reasonable, where my feet don't ache at the end of the day, and, most importantly, where there are no children at all.  None.  I mean it. 

742.  And this is supposed to be 1,200?  Shit. 

I think MTC and I were just a bad match.  I think we made each other miserable.  I think that the right person, with the right personality and the right mindset, could do very well in MTC and enjoy the experience.  Maybe one day I'll try teaching again, but I don't think it'll be next year.  No matter where I go, I'm going to be afraid that the students are going to be just like the ones I have here.  Now, to be fair, many of the students here are wonderful.  Most, even.  It's just those who aren't that I can't handle. 

MTC gave me the tools and skills necessary to be a good teacher, but I didn't use them.  I know what I should do, but I choose not to do it.  I choose not to be consistent, not to contact parents, not to keep a handle on my temper, not to make detailed lesson plans, not to ask other teachers for advice, not to stay on top of my grading, not to find an outlet for stress relief, not to get involved with my school or community, and I've survived.  Hated most minutes of it, but I've survived. 

951.  Closer. 

Hmm...  I guess I'll talk about my second summer.  I stayed with everybody else at Northgate.  (Damn it, why can't the jdfjdklsjflksdj students just close the damn door after they walk through it?  WTF?  This is not a hard task.)  I hung out with folks more often, but still felt disconnected.  This was probably all in my head.  I loved loved loved my first years (and I still do)!!!!!  Hayley, Jenn, and Parks, I <3 U.  Austin and I occasionally had some friction, and we missed Michele, but it June was a good month. 

This school year, I lived alone, and became more of a hermit than ever.  I rarely see anyone from MTC, except for Heather, since she teaches on the same hall as I do.  Most nights, I'd come home from school, change into comfy clothes (sweats/holey jeans + t-shirt), and either crash for a few hours, or sit on my stoop and try my best to forget my day.  I'm perpetually behind on grading, never make parent contact, and don't turn in lesson plans.  Hey..  At least I've not been fired.  Yet.  I stopped caring about school and about the program early on this year (not the year 2009, but this school year).  My grades reflected this.  I won't be graduating with the rest of my class, and I doubt I'll ever use this degree I'm earning, but at least I'm finishing, right? 

Reflecting, MTC was an interesting, if harrowing, experience, and I met a bunch of really neat folks that I'm glad I had the opportunity to know, but I could've done without the whole teaching bit.  I guess then I'd still be wondering if I could do it though, wouldn't I?

The End. 

wait.  are these our first years or our first years' first years?  I'm assuming they're ours. 

Dear first-years,

This summer will be fun.  Love on your first years.  Brag on your second years.  Pass the torch.  Love y'all, and I hope your second year is better than your first.   Play lots of volleyball..  or ultimate or basketball- whatever your sport of choice.  Enjoy the sunshine.  Lesson plan a little, or a lot, but use June (at least a week or so of it) to do some teacher-school-work.  You're almost there.  This year will fly by; you have no idea.  Don't give up.  Or do give up, if that's what's right for you.  Don't get too wild at Northgate.  Seriously.  Don't get too wild at Northgate.  You're second-years now.  Don't scare the poor firsties off too quickly, or there will be nobody to do all the work at summer school.  See if you can't get Ben to bring out the Jordan attire again.  Please? 

Love. 

Here we are, nearing the end of the MTC commitment.  I know what a few people are doing next year, but I'm in the dark about most.  I certainly don't know where I'll end up.  Want to hear the possibilities?  Too bad.  I'm telling you anyway.

1. Stay in Jackson.  Work shit job.  Figure things out.
2. Move somewhere else.  Try to find a better school.  Teach some more.  (This is, of course, assuming anyone would even hire me.  I definitely lack withitness.)
3. Go back to school.  Maybe library science, maybe psychology?  I have no idea.  It's just like finishing my undergrad- I'm completely aimless. 
4. Find a better school.  Substitute teach for a while.  Find out if younger (or older) kids are a better fit.
5. Join the army.  (See, the scary thing here is that I'm halfway serious.  Well, maybe an eighth of the way.)
6. Move somewhere else.  Work shit job.  Figure things out. 
7. Sell all my belongings and wander aimlessly around the U.S., working odd jobs to buy gas and living out of my car.  With my cats. 

Any opinions?

Why are my classmates impressive?

1. They are still here.  In Mississippi.  In their schools. 
   
2. They teach AND go to school AND (usually) have all kinds of other things going on.
3. They know how to have fun.
4. They're smarter than the average bear. 
   

I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons.  Maybe I'll add them later. 

I think this calls for a bulleted list. 

• You like children.
• You like your subject.
• You are very patient.
• You are not a softie.
• You want to help students succeed.
• You are very patient.
• You're very good at multitasking.
• You forgive easily.
• You are hard-working.
• You are very patient.
• You handle stress well.
• You are fairly even-tempered.  
• You are very organized, or at least capable of being very organized.  
• You perform well without thanks.
• You really, really like paperwork.
  

my uncle knows Joe the plumber.  just felt like sharing. 

The biggest difference this year is that I'm focused much more on the students and much less on myself.  I'm seeing the possibilities of each individual student in my classroom and how they can help each other.  I'm being more understanding, more patient (so far, at least).  I'm not scared.  Honestly, I don't remember all that much about the first days of last year.  I feel like maybe I was going through it in a haze, worried and obsessing over everything. 

"I'm sitting in the lunchroom, seeing the faces of my former students and grinning like a fool.  Even the ones whose presence I dreaded.  They make me smile.  I want to see their faces next year.  I want to watch them walk across the stage in their silly hats the year after that.  I'll cry like a baby.  THIS is why I came back.  I didn't know it at the time, but this is it." 

Now, I have no idea if this feeling will last for any length of time, but I can hope.  And when the days get bad again, (and they no doubt will, though hopefully only briefly) I can look at this and remember the feeling and know that eensy tiny little moments like this will make it worthwhile.  I can see that I'm getting pretty mushy here, and that could be because I'm a bit sleep-deprived and horribly sentimental, but I like it.  So I'm going to wallow in this ridiculous, mushy, horribly sentimental feeling as long as the damn thing lasts.  Or til I go to sleep, at the very least. 

Hopefully I won't be embarrassed enough to delete or hide this when I wake up with a closer-to-fully-functional brain.  I totally almost cried in the cafeteria today.  I am a nutcase.  Thank you.  Good night. 

Um..

So, if I had done all of the statistics that my district wanted me to do, I could just look in my files and spit out some numbers for you.  I didn't.  I'm really kind of pulling at straws for this one. 

most successful learning goal:

Grammar and mechanics, maybe?  My Do Now nearly every day was a DOL exercise, and I feel like this was pretty much the most effective method I used teaching grammar.  I could really see progress from the beginning of the year to the end.  Perhaps it was because these were fairly simple concepts to understand, unlike many of the skills I attempted to teach.  Perhaps it was because I used tickets most consistently with my DOL to encourage participation.  Maybe it was just because we did it so very often.  I'm not sure. 

least successful learning goal:

I think this was parallel structure.  Of course, it's possible that this was just the most recent failure of mine.  Who knows..  Why did it fail?  That's a very good question.  I taught it in a way that seemed to make sense, but apparently did not.  I have yet to find a successful method of teaching it..  Of course, one of my wonderful first-years is teaching it soon, so maybe she will have the key.  I'm crossing my fingers.  Ok.  Why... My students don't know enough grammar.  I didn't realize soon enough that I really needed to emphasize the basics, so I didn't get a chance to cover as much basic grammar as I would've liked.  Because they didn't have a horribly firm grasp of sentence structure at the beginning, the concept of parallel sentence structure was a real stretch. Also,  I had run low on motivation to come up with creative, exciting lessons by this time, so they weren't really that into it to begin with. 

My performance this year was lacking.  As we've said over and over, the first year is about surviving.  I survived.  Barely.  I let my students bad behaviors get under my skin and got frustrated.  I associated school with misery and frustration, so I avoided anything that had to do with it.  I dreaded lesson planning, so all of my lessons were boring, so the students hated my class, so they acted up, so I got angry, so I hated school, and so on and so forth.  It was fun! 

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  This year, I will do better.  That's my resolution.  I will try my hardest to keep a positive attitude no matter what happens.  I will look at my long-term goals for my students.  I will work slowly, incrementally, and patiently with my students.  I will plan ahead.  I will bring creativity into my lessons.  I will not feel sorry for myself, attempting instead to focus on my students.  Lofty goals, eh?

I definitely believe that coaching is a beneficial practice for us and for the first-years.  I have to admit that i feel silly calling it coaching, though.  I'm just not going to use that particular term.  I'm replacing the noun with "guru" and the verb with "enlighten"...   Silly, but it feels less silly, or maybe more obviously/deliberately silly. 

What sort of a guru am I?  Maybe I should ask my first years.  I think sometimes I tend to focus too much on the suggestions for improvement and too little on the positive aspects of the lesson.  I listen, offer tips, sometimes commiserate.  I think the most difficult part of enlightening is motivating, at least for me.  I'm a pretty low-key person, not great at motivational speeches.  I'll tell you that you're awesome if you are, but if you don't believe it, I don't really know how to change your mind.  Since I haven't been a guru long, I don't think I've developed a style.  If I do have one, it must be inherent.  I don't think it's had much of an impact on my teaching, other than to remind me how far I've come in a year. 

The biggest thing I've noticed about enlightening is that I do it very differently than my second years did last year..  I'm guessing that they had the same sort of spiel that we got about it, because they did it basically the same way.  I realize I'm contradicting myself, so let me clarify.  My second years also gave plenty of praise along with their suggestions for improvement, but they did it from a different position.  I admit my weaknesses (perhaps too much), which I don't remember my gurus doing.  I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not..  I guess maybe someone will tell me. 

This school year, I must admit that I was not as on top of assessments as I should've been.  (I'm noticing a trend here...)  I was fairly clueless about making tests and a bit too lazy to really analyze the data.  I felt like I should've made my tests something like the state test that all of my students will take in 10th grade, but I didn't. 

I didn't really have an "assessment plan" in place for the vast majority of the school year.  I knew which objectives I was going to include on the test, but I didn't quite know how.  I used mainly multiple choice tests. Usually there was some writing included as well, likely essay.  I eliminated some questions and requirements for my exceptional education students, but that was about the extent of my adjustments. 

Assessments are definitely important to determine prior knowledge, progress, and comprehension at the end of a unit.  They should be ongoing and their results should be analyzed as an indication of student progress.  That said, mine haven't been what they should.  I'd venture to say that first year teachers in general aren't as prepared/thorough as they ought to be...  Of course, that could just be me trying not to feel guilty. 

Next year...