A Different Sort of Issue

I know that I have been seemingly down, frustrated, etc. in this blog lately.

I guess it is just that I am very tired. Now, if I told you what time I go to sleep every night, most would laugh in my face because OMG how can you be that tired when you go to bed by 10:30 every night. My response would be snappy and irritated:

I am tired because I teach junior high/high school kids all day long. I am tired because I do not get to stop working when I am at home like most people in the working world, where I theoretically am supposed to kick back and relax. I work all the way up to bed time, in my own home. And then I wake up at 6:10 the next morning and arrive to school by 7:15-ish. Then, especially this week, I tutor a kid or two before school starts. If I don't tutor, I work. I make copies. I grade stuff. Then I repeat the cycle of teaching kids all day long. 30 minutes for lunch. One period to make more copies, grade, have meetings and respond to email. Then after school I do a variety of things depending on the day. Sometimes I grade, sometimes I make tests, reviews, homework, etc. Sometimes- and definitely on Wednesdays, I tutor until 5. Then I come home, hopefully work out, begin working and chat to my friend in Florida... all the while grading and recording grades. Making tests and test reviews, homework, quizzes.... the list goes on.

So yes. I am tired. I know I go to bed at 10:30 and that is early. But I am exhausted. I get tired when I am talking all day. Non-stop. (Imagine having to give a class or work presentation for 6 hours straight and you will know just how much I talk in a day- and that is just the teaching talking, not conversations). I get tired when I am constantly repeating myself. I get tired when I am getting onto kids who really should know better (and I hate that part more than anything). I get tired of not having any 'me' time. EVER. Except Saturdays (which I force on myself, because honestly, not working on Saturdays means I still start the next week behind on everything. But I can't go seven days a week. I just can't.)

People who I know could understand: most students in higher education- not college mind you. But higher than college. Things like Master's programs, MD programs, JD programs, PhD programs, and many a nursing school.

But then I also know that very few know the exhaustion and frustration of a teacher like only another teacher could.

It is frustrating, painful, annoying, maddening, wretched to grade the homework, quizzes and tests (which you yourself have made) of YOUR OWN STUDENTS, who you and no one else taught, and cover the page in red ink. To write a failing, or even just a C grade at the top of the page. It is heartbreaking and disappointing, and you begin to take it personal: Wow. I must not have taught them very well. Wow. They must not listen to me. Wow. I must not be a very good teacher.

Only a teacher can know what this feels like. Because these students- kids, teenagers, adults, whatever- are your job. You think to yourself, "They are my work. They are the project which will signify whether I have done a good job or not. They are the showing of my ability."

And when they don't do well.... it wears on you. It not only makes you exhausted, because you feel like you don't know how else to explain things and get them to JUST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD UNDERSTAND, but also because it eats away at your own confidence in your abilities.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love my job. I love what I have chosen to do. I know that I made a choice to take on this weariness and work. I also love my students. I have a very talented, enjoyable bunch of kids this year- all 73 of them. They are respectful (for the most part), never malicious, never mean (to me at least- we are working on the 'to each other' part), and overall we have a mutual liking and respect.

But,the ones that I taught last year which I am again teaching this year on the next level of Latin. They are letting me down. Or maybe it's that I have let them down. I just can't tell anymore.

It does wear on me. I come home and I need an outlet. This blog has been my outlet for this week.

That... and talking to other teachers.