In an effort to keep things professional, this post (and future posts) lacks many more words that express my feelings and experiences. I'm still recording those words for myself, but for now, enjoy my insight to my experiences over the past couple weeks.
I started teaching in an inner-city school two weeks ago and I've experienced emotions I never knew existed. The fear, hopelessness, doubt, frustration, sadness, and anger don't even come close to anything I could have anticipated.
Don't get me wrong, I love teaching. I love finding innovative ways to support individual learners and provide chances for students to discover their own learning styles. I seek continued professional growth and development outside of what is required through employment because it's all so interesting and I know that good teachers must continually seek the latest teaching tools. More important than teaching is helping students learn. I love seeing a student learn something while doing what they love. Frustratingly, I feel like none of that is happening.
What's most frustrating is the push for better teaching, more engaging lessons and more positive feedback. What am I supposed to do when I'm applying my skill-set pertaining to those categories, but the behavior is so bad that teaching is next to impossible? I can teach character skills that are in no way being reinforced at home. I can be positive toward the 10 seconds of good behavior in an entire day. I can know the curriculum and content and continually research new ways to engage children, but when 11 year-olds are saying and doing the things they are doing in my classroom, I'm no longer a teacher, but I'm a juvenile-corrections officer. It's not what I signed up for and it's not something for which I'm prepared, trained or qualified.
Quitting isn't an option for me, it never has been. I am a committed person. What disturbs me most is not all the poor behaviors, language, and choices I see in my students, but the fact that a profession I love so dearly, a profession I cherish and value, a profession that drives me to become better has driven me to complete exhaustion is such a short amount of time. I'm a committed person and quitting isn't an option, but what has disturbed me most is that I truly want to quit and find myself actually contemplating plans to do so.
"I know you can do this and I know that you want to get better at math because the ability to accomplish something hard will help you get into college and get the job you want."
"Mrs. Johnson, I don't want a job. My mom doesn't work and we get free groceries and an apartment."
How do I respond to that?
