As it stands…
I’m trying hard lately to think positive but that, admittedly, is really hard considering my job. I obviously cannot divulge where I work, but I will say this much: I’m a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really proud of myself and what I do, but it wreaks havoc on me in terms of my pulling. When I’m up in front of my class, I usually feel pretty confident that I’m doing a good job. It’s outside of class that makes me sick with anxiety.
I guess the hardest part about it all is that I can’t not take it personally when a student is failing or doing a poor job. I know that’s irrational and I’m not doing myself or them any favors by feeling this way about it, but it’s a feeling I cannot escape. The trouble is, my feelings of worth and success are derived from what they do (or do not do in many cases).
It’s impossible not to feel this way if my success as a teacher is measured by their success as students. I’m also pretty much being asked to do the impossible in most cases. The expectations cannot change because they’re not just my expectations, they’re simply what a student must do to be doing things correctly. The level of thinking required of them is not some arbitrary demand from me, it’s what’s necessary to be able to write clearly and expressively. So, a great deal of my time (countless hours) is spent reading and deciphering their work and then trying to give them feedback that will help them to do better the next time. I know I must do this to help them and to be a good teacher, and I don’t mind doing it when they actually have the good sense to take my advice. The thing that makes me crazy is telling them explicitly what is expected and what they must do and outlining this in exhaustive detail and them turning around and ignoring it. In many cases, not even reading it I’m sure. I can stand up in class and tell them that they must start doing something, something totally within their control, or give them all the ideas they can use to write their essays, and they will turn around and do the opposite. It is totally bewildering. I mean, how could someone not be insulted by that?
Sometimes, I get so frustrated I just want to unleash on them and tell them what assholes their being when they do this and that they deserve to fail. I feel like telling them that they shouldn’t expect any kind of success in life because they’re lazy, self centered and short sighted. I feel like telling them that it’s no damn wonder that our country is circling the drain and that we’re being surpassed by many other countries in every way, that these countries have a social system that is set up to have no time and no place for people who sit on their asses and wait for success to be handed to them. Such people are left in the dust. I feel like asking them, what are you even doing here? Why are you wasting my time? I could have more time to spend on taking care of myself and getting much needed rest if I wasn’t churning out personalized advice for a bunch of people who arn’t going to take it. I would have a lot less grey hair and no dark circles under my eyes if those who weren’t serious would just leave already. And yet, beneath all that anger and frustration, I feel like a failure because I couldn’t motivate them to work harder and give their best.
That, and I could never do that because it’s so hard to tell who won’t and who can’t. I’m battling twelve years of criminally neglectful public education. An “education” that left most of my students with a terrible attitude and/or chip on their shoulder about learning. They see me and the work I require of them as just one more grudging burden to add onto the pile of burdens that is their lives. When I am critical of their work (albeit constructively) they see this as a punishment for even trying in the first place. This is compounded by the fact that our education system has convinced them that trying should equal succeeding. They can’t see that the path to success is paved with criticism from those who know or that they must struggle to improve or what they can do now is not good enough yet but that with hard work and self-examination, it can be. They also can’t see how what I teach could have any bearing on their real life or their success. Words arn’t real: you can’t eat them and they don’t pay your electric bill, so who cares? I may explain to them until I’m blue in the face, but they’ll never make the connection that even if they never write another word in their lives, the exercise of becoming a better, more accurate writer translates to just about everything else they could do. They get defensive when I criticize the shallowness of their ideas, that they haven’t organized their thoughts in a coherent way and that they have unacceptable grammar and spelling. But isn’t thinking logically and more profoundly tied to success? To happiness? Isn’t being accurate in what we do and paying attention to detail, polishing a final product until it’s something to be proud of a part of being a successful person no matter what we do in life? Are my demands any different than what the real world demands? I guess so if they’ve gotten this far thinking the way they do. I just can’t understand how so many of them can show up for an education that they know they need and yet not know they don’t have all the answers and that they’re not perfect. That or they’re just not used to someone daring to tell them they’re not. So many of them have gotten by with the minimum effort and because they’re not completely illiterate, they’re doing OK in the eyes of the state. Before they showed up in my class, they felt fine. I have to be the one to tell them the ugly truth that they have a lot of work to do if they hope to be decent writers or decent people for that matter.
The other point of stress is that so many do want to get better, but are so behind where they should be that it would take a miracle to get them to where they should be by the end of the semester. With lots of close one-on-one help from me, they could probably make it happen, but with so many students and so many classes, it’s just not a possibility as much as I may be willing. So, these students struggle and struggle and I have to keep critiquing and critiquing and I feel so bad. I spend countless hours trying to communicate what they should do in the comments I write them, but without hands on guidance, it makes little difference (especially since many of them can barely read). I hate that I can’t help them enough but I’m only one person and their are so many of them.
Every stack of grading that comes in sinks my heart a little deeper– the positive rewards of those who do improve and are benefitting from my help and instruction are so outweighed by those who don’t that getting up to go to work sometimes is a grinding struggle. I hate being the bad guy and I hate being dissapointed and I hate feeling like I’m shouting myself hoarse for nothing.
The only relief I can get when I sit alone in my office and tear people’s hard work apart is to pull while I do it. The worse they do, the more I pull. It’s so hard to feel like an afterthought when my whole life revolves around them. I just want to yell at them: “I am an actual person. I matter. This is my job and I take it seriously. I give up so much for you and all I ask in return is that you give your best effort and meet me in the middle. I don’t have to work this hard or be this caring or do as much as I do for you, but I couldn’t live with myself any other way. Please don’t take my efforts and my concern for you for granted. Don’t make me feel like I’m wasting the best years of my young life on people who don’t give a shit.”
But, I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself because I’m sick and I’m tired and I have to stay in so I can work early in the morning so other people can have a better life. Boohoo, poor me. I go through this same feeling of self pity and hopelessness every semester. By the end I’ll see the fruits of my labor and it won’t seem like a waste of my time. It’s just hard to see that where I’m standing now I guess. Every semester I vow not to get worked up over the inevitable and not to take this all so personally, but I always do. Maybe if I could pursue outside hobbies that are relaxing and satisfying, I wouldn’t get so tightly wrapped up in my work, but there never seems to be enough time or energy to go around.
I have to believe I won’t always feel this way though. Eventually, I’ll have to make peace with what I cannot control or go completely nuts. Hopefully, I will…
