As to Why

Took some time off from the old blog. What with the baby and the new year and the extra class, I just couldn’t keep up — everything was running together and I felt at a loss. I needed that time when I got home from school to just sit down and close out my thoughts.

After some time I began to notice that I wasn’t planning, and this was a harm to my teaching. I wasn’t preparing anything, at all, for the students. Every day became “off-the-cuff” lessons, and that sort of teaching is also harmful. During the past few months I feel as though losing this reflective practice has hurt everyone involved. It’s made me a thoughtless and worthless practitioner; it’s allowed me to give nothing to my students; it’s allowed me to use my teaching day to relax and find time for myself, and as I type out these words I recognize and accept that I have become a bad teacher. I left things ungraded and hurried students through their work. I got frustrated when the kids were acting up and blamed it on them. I gave less time for more severe assignments and gave simple grades to reflect the fact that the students’ work was not “up-to-snuff.”

As a result, my students began acting out. They needed structure and help, and I, soldered to my desk, was unwilling to give. I helped where I could, but if the help was not quickly accepted I gave up.

I became a child. And for that I scold myself.

Time for renewal, hence the new blog.

Time to be the teacher I sought out to be. Time to reclaim that energy and those expectations I sought from myself as a teacher — that I wouldn’t just grade a paper on the simple fact that it was turned in; that I wouldn’t sit at my desk and demand silence for no reason; that I wouldn’t become the person who sat around waiting for the day to end so he could go home and tend to his own responsibilities. Time to punish myself for the problems I’ve caused and for the lost education the students might trip over on their way into my classroom.

I used to be a different person, and my wife recently noticed that I have become someone opposite my own goals. If you ever need a wake-up call, seek out your closest. He or She will turn a screw deep inside you.

And so here I am. Back again and focused on making sure my kids don’t walk away from grade 8 with nothing to show. Here I am. Returned to ensure I give each student my best. Here I am, in search of the teacher I want to be and returned sterner (for myself), more capable (from what I’ve learned), and more eager (because, shit, I’ve given up on a kid or two, and it fucking kills me that I’ve stepped that far away from the core of my ideals) to find a way to make sure each kid makes it out alive and better for it.

Damn me for sinking so deep into what I hate.