Ups and Downs of Teaching

Tuesday and Thursday were parent conferences at my school this week, nice bookends to a day of testing (Wednesday) and our "last hurrah" before fall  break.  It isn't super busy around here tonight--quite a few parents, but no lines that I can see from my little Special Ed corner.  Needless to say, we do a lot of chatting amongst ourselves on these nights, grade some papers, work on IEP's, check email...and so on.

One of the discussions tonight has made me very thoughtful.  Apparently, one of our former students was arrested last weekend in an incident that was just big enough to make a local small town paper Now, I'll preface this with the statement that I work with good people.  But...some of the reactions to the arrest make me sick, for lack of an alternative description.

There was a picture included and the young person looks nothing like they did when they attended my school.  They look worn out beyond their 18 years.  The student's hair was messy, clearly the result of a tussle. The reaction by some of my co-workers has been to laugh and to joke that "well, we did good work there".  Here's the problem...I think we did do good work.  Yes, this young person is responsible for their choices, and clearly poor choices have been made...but if I rejoice in my students' success, how can I not grieve for their failures?

Since I was in a pensive mood, I did something I do about every six months...I looked up one of my favorite former students (I'm not joking, he was one of my favorites) on the State Corrections Website to see if he had a successful parole hearing this time.  Turns out he did, and a quick google search turned up his facebook page (no, I didn't friend him), stating that he is working as a nurse's aide and filled with notes about his activities with his church.  While all is certainly not right with the world...this certainly makes me feel a little better about the seeds I planted there and makes me hopeful that the recently arrested student will also turn things around someday.

Teacher retention, the January blahs, and all that...

Recently another experienced teacher and I were chatting with a teacher new to our building this year.  He was expressing his frustration with all the usual teacher frustrations--student behavior, parent behavior, administration actions.  We chatted about the ideas of planting seeds, of doing what we can do the very best we can, of taking time for ourselves to keep perspective, of choosing what battles we want to fight (with kids, parents, admin, our own families)...but I left wondering what else can be done in our crazy society that sometimes seems outright hostile to teachers.  The problems in schools don't go away after January, but there is something about this month that makes it all more unbearable.

I think this is a time of year when a lot of teachers struggle--when we question why we do what we do.  We are about half way through the year--past the fall, when the kids are (generally) on their good behavior, deep into grading essays late into the night, and seemingly far from graduation and all the celebrations that spring holds.

My first year of teaching someone gave me a chart that I wish I could put my hands on.  It had each month and then a tongue-in-cheek description of how a new teacher might be feeling.  Over the years, I've realized it is pretty accurate for how I feel every year.  August was something like "hopeful, idealistic, energized", May was something like "thankful, feelings of accomplishment, and tired".  And in the middle was January, described something like  "desperation, self-doubt, want to leave teaching".  Ouch.  And usually true for me...maybe not want to leave teaching...but many years I want to go to another school or go back to teaching social studies full time instead of special ed.  And some years I'm ready to quit and raise goats, run away and hide in Mexico...well you get the idea.

Compounding my "blahs" is the fact that one of my favorite team teachers ever is resigning at the end of this semester.  There are many reasons, which are hers to tell, not mine.  I'm happy for her, because she has some opportunities that will be great for her family...and I'm sad for our school, because I think there were things that administration, as well as us, her fellow teachers, could have done that might have helped us keep her with us a little longer.  It is the same phenomenon that we see in  all the time--that good teachers (great teachers!) leave the field because there is something they need that they aren't getting from our current system.  And worse, they sometimes leave the field sad and frustrated, being pushed out, rather than pulled out for something different or something that they really want to do.

I know I don't have the answers...there are lots of folks who think they do (just google "teacher burn out prevention").  There are lots of ideas out there.. but my hope and prayer is that we are all just a little kinder to each other--especially to the adults we expect to educate our kids--and especially during January. Spring is coming...we can do this!