Three jobs in three years, with no guarantee of having a job next year, starts to play with your mind. The students that make your job even harder, the doing your job during every waken moment...this is the story of my life right now.
Am I meant to be in this job? Do I really want to be doing this job? And then the idea of teaching Geometry...AAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
Last week I started the week being pretty miserable. But this week I am going to try to stay a little more positive. I know that the problem students are not being a problem because of me, they are a problem for everyone. I know that everyone is stressed. I know that I am doing a good job, per my observation last week, and that I won't ever be perfect, so why try to be. I still know more than any student in my classroom, and really do they know a bad lesson from a good lesson. I need to make more time for myself, and things will get done. Probably not on the time frame that I have been trying to hold myself to...just a little longer.
I need to stop letting students control the decisions that I make, and not to let their comments effect my plan going forward. Of course they are going to bitch about the number of homework problems that I give them each night or that a quiz is 50 pts, "That's more like a test!", although quizzes are 20% of their grade and tests are 40%. These students are not my peers, their parents are not people that I socialize with and are not the ones making the decision about my job.
I know I can survive, but I am not sure that I want to. Do I really want to teach?
ER I suggest turning the weighting of the grades into a math problem for them to see that it really doesn't matter how many points the quiz is that it is all weighted. I am going to do just that this week with my 8th graders.
ReplyDeleteKeep your head up, remember the ones who whine all the time ignore, respond to them quickly and move on! Your are the boss and the only one getting paid to be in there, even if it is $10,000 less than last year, you are the boss!