A State of Disillusionment

According to a study from UC Berkeley, there are five stages in a new teacher's life. The third stage is "disillusionment", the stage in which new teachers start to question what on earth they got themselves into. I have found myself in this stage of teaching for quite sometime. Survival mode precedes disillusionment, and I am happy to not feel like I am simply surviving anymore. Not that things are very easy.

I have started to read "Relentless Pursuit", a book about 4 TFA corps members in Los Angeles in 2005 (if you want more of a look at what TFA is and what corps members do, this would be a good read). It's very interesting (and bizarre) to read about people going through the same experience I'm going through right now. The first chapters are about the organization and recruitment. The author mentions over and over how elite TFA is and how elite the people who get in are. It's especially weird to read that because I certainly don't feel elite, not in the least. Especially right now. I know I am supposed to be here and that I am capable of being here, it's just hard to feel elite among so many others who are so intelligent and accomplished. People who had 3 majors, ran student governments, took graduate classes, ran research from their sophomore year on, and were recruited by other top organizations. Yet all the same, we're all struggling together. No one is having an easy time. It's just a very strange experience, all in all.

I've begun to get into the meat of teaching. And I do feel like I am failing a bit there. I am still developing my systems and my voice as a teacher. I'm not working my students hard enough and sometimes (despite my 85 hours of working per week) feel like I'm not working hard enough. I think perhaps it's a matter of working better, smarter rather than harder. I'm coming to the end of the first quarter at school and I feel like I haven't really taught much at all. I haven't given a unit test yet, haven't really been tracking student progress as well as I should be, and in general am still grappling with this whole thing. I'm starting to like it though, and that's some progress. I've gotten to know my students better and they're amazing. They're so smart and innovative and they do these incredible things without even realizing it sometimes. I think it's so sad that they haven't been told how great they are enough. They just have no idea. So I love going in every day and getting to work with them and help them see how much they really know. Despite all the fighting, sucking of teeth, heavy sighs and complaints about writing a couple of sentences down. They eventually comply and start to see that Biology/Physical Science is cool sometimes. Even the students who try my patience every single day, I love them to death.

On a rather funny side note, I went to our school's football game on Friday and it was quite entertaining. First, my high school never really had a huge football culture, not like down here. So that in itself is new and interesting. The school has a football team, a band, cheerleaders, majorettes, a flag team, and a dance team. For 230 students. It's pretty cool actually. Seeing my girls dancing on the dance team in their leotards and sparkling tights, I felt a little like a mama bear (that's for the improv kids ;) ) and was a little shocked at their dance moves. They all had a great time though (despite our team's loss :( ) and it was good to see them outside of class.

All in all, things are very very very slowly beginning to improve. My experience might not be typical, I may be the "weird" one who did improv and theater instead of majoring in 3 things and doing graduate work. But I don't think I'd change that in the end. I like being unique and I like that I can bring my experiences to my students. In the end we all have the same chance at helping our kids. The past doesn't matter as much as what we're doing right now. Hopefully it will be something good.