"Why did I become a teacher?" Day

So I'm declaring today a "Why did I become a teacher?" Day. It happens from time to time, and today is one of those days. The morning in particular was rough today. The afternoon, thus far, has been better.

I'm not sure what, exactly, seemed appealing about becoming a teacher. I remember being a kid and I LOVED having a fake grade book. My mom had some sort of accounting book, and I turned it into a grade book. I was so thrilled to put fake names and fake grades in it and play teachers with my quiet, kind stuffed animals. Students, it turns out, are often not quiet nor kind. They can be cruel, manipulative, annoying, rude, and rebellious. It's starting to wear on me.

This leads into my teaching philosophy, or lack thereof. I'm not sure what, exactly, I think my role should be. Should I be a constant disciplinarian, counselor, parent, confidante, and so forth, or is my primary job to educate? I can't quite tell yet. It's really hard to teach the kids when they keep getting in their own way!

I'm astonished by how many kids just do not LISTEN every day. Yeah, math may not be the most exciting thing ever, but I'm convinced that if the kids just listened and paid attention, they'd all have As. Arg. It's really, really, really annoying and draining to repeat myself a gajillion times a day. Sometimes I'll write "p. 224in your books" on the board AND say, "Please take out your books and open to page 224." I'll have kids say, "What are we doing?" or "What page?" or "Where are we?" or just stare at me blankly. THEN when we're actually doing an activity, when I call on people who aren't raising their hands, my request is usually met with a, "Huh?" or, "Where are we?" Those who ARE paying attention let out sighs of exasperation. It's immensely frustrating.

So... what to do? How do I get them hooked and interested? How do I do this every day? How do I help them? How do I chill out? Geez, I'm essentially a first-year teacher all over again!

And some more venting... I get here, usually, at about 7am. I typically leave around 7pm. I go home only to lay catatonically on the couch until bedtime. Then it's lather-rinse-repeat, and I'm back at school. Despite all my time planning and grading, I still feel largely ineffective and drained. Granted, I'm not as drained as I was my first year, but I'm still baffled by how good teachers get to where they are.

Next week starts another session of our glorious after-school tutoring. I feel that I kind of cheated last session... See, the kids' progress in tutoring is measured by their scores on an identical pre- and post-test. We're supposed to give the kids the pre-test and see how they do, then teach for 3 weeks, and present the exact same test the last day. I went over the pre-test frequently with the (large, loud, obnoxious) tutoring class frequently. We took notes on how to find the answers. We did the pre-test together the second-last day of tutoring together. They wrote the answer for each, and how to do it. I let them use their notes (with the answers!!) on the post-test.

A lot of students got a 90% or higher (thank goodness!), and my numbers looked really good. However, I feel I kind of cheated. The ones who payed attention had the answers right in front of them. Granted, they still had to work the problems and show their work, but I felt kind of bad about it. To make matters worse... the tutoring coordinator approached me to rave about my students' performance. "How'd you get such remarkable numbers?!" she'd marveled. I had to creatively construct an answer that didn't include the word "cheat" at all. It was interesting. I left that conversatino feeling like a phony and a fraud. AND tomorrow morning, we're having a meeting about tutoring and what successes we have. I'm to address my peers to tell what strategies I've been using. Yikes.

For now, I prep for my last class of the day, then figure out how to survive the rest of this quarter and year! Cheers.