More me.
Today my head is a pinball machine, my attention the ball. It's all sound and fury, but if I don't let it run like this I'll be fighting a panic attack. I've started lots of things this morning, but the only thing I've finished is folding my laundry. I'm terrified of going back to school tomorrow. My kids are supposed to be ready to start the editing process on their personal narratives and only one in ten of them is going to have written it.
About 70% of my kids are going to fail this trimester. I can't help but feel like I've failed them. And I feel bad about it because I feel like I've done about the best I can and it's not good enough. I've never realized my inadequacies as a teacher like I do now. I don't think I'm very good at it.
I don't have enough patience, and I don't understand why they can't do the things I can do easily and have always been able to do easily. I don't have a high opinion of my capabilities. I haven't since high school. So the fact that I can do most of these things without trying, when I think I'm no great shakes, makes me feel like there's something really wrong with these kids.
I just don't know how to get them to do what is expected of them. Either they just don't want to, or I've failed. It's hard for me to believe that the whole lot of them but for a few are ok with failing and don't care about the future, so it's easier to believe it's my fault. I don't feel like there's any objective way of determining the truth of the situation, so I'm kind of stuck feeling awful.
One thing I'm more certain of than ever. I don't think it does much good to have compulsory education. I can't force anyone to learn anything, so for many of my students school is like training prison. It's just a place they're confined to before they get started on the real thing. I've already had about 10% of my students get started on it because of drugs in this trimester alone. From what I can tell, about 25% more just haven't got caught yet.
