When I started teaching 3 years ago, I was assigned a mentor. She helped me navigate the annoying craziness of trying to get certified, but I didn't ever really talk to her about problems with teaching. I just handled whatever came up, and generally the kids and I got along and got stuff done and by the end of each year I was very tired. As are all of the teachers every year.
This year I said to her, "I don't know, I think I might have to retire after this year." She said she had been afraid that might happen, and gave me a talk about "remember they're only high school kids" and maybe I needed to adjust my expectations (I know I'm always a perfectionist, argh), and gave me an assignment: this year my goal should be to change whatever I need to change to make teaching a good fit for me. She's right, we're lucky that at PATHS we have incredible freedom regarding what we teach and how we teach it. So that's my assignment. Making teaching work for me.
I started off by challenging the Video Tech teacher and his class to a competition to see who can come up with the most ridiculous athletic activity involving classroom curriculum. (I decided that it would be fun to end the year with all of the computer geeks kicking butt in something athletic--yeehaw! Just remembering college days when the CS Department floor hockey team totally housed the lacrosse frat. Yessah).
This was the first full week of school and the first week back to teaching violin, and on Monday and Tuesday I was totally fried. Somehow I forgot what that was like. Now I'm back to the grind, except I am noticing one thing: good group of PATHS students this year. My students are getting better. Lots of them are dealing with tough personal issues, but as a group they have a good attitude and are working. I have a ton of things to grade this week. This is good. And exhausting.
Hmmmm. Schoolteaching. Pros and cons. Happy. Tired. Argh.