Teaching is an extremely creative, extremely frustrating field. Every day, I have an opportunity to create and implement new things with the added benefit of a guaranteed audience. Yes, there's grading, paperwork, and meetings, but the majority of my day is spent trying to help students understand something they might not know yet, in the best way I know how.
But the most frustrating part of my job isn't the paperwork. It's not the grading. It's not the meetings.
It's the opportunity to create.
There just isn't enough time to think of, plan, and implement a creative math lesson every day. Because there's the paperwork. There's the grading. There's the physical exhaustion of being on your feet all day. There's the occasional mental block. There's the laundry.
It'd be one thing if I couldn't tell that what I said was too wordy, or that their activity wasn't focused enough, or that it was too vague, boring, slow, fast, what have you.
But I can tell. And that makes me feel like I'm not working hard enough ("this clearly wasn't my best") which, then, makes it hard to work at all ("what's the point?")
I recently heard an interview by Ira Glass that helps put things in perspective:
I've spent the past nine months in the following cycle: work, nap, eat, worry, sleep, and repeat. I spent such a disproportionate time thinking about work, that I began neglecting everything else.
And that's not how I want to live.
It's time to grow up.
But the most frustrating part of my job isn't the paperwork. It's not the grading. It's not the meetings.
It's the opportunity to create.
There just isn't enough time to think of, plan, and implement a creative math lesson every day. Because there's the paperwork. There's the grading. There's the physical exhaustion of being on your feet all day. There's the occasional mental block. There's the laundry.
It'd be one thing if I couldn't tell that what I said was too wordy, or that their activity wasn't focused enough, or that it was too vague, boring, slow, fast, what have you.
But I can tell. And that makes me feel like I'm not working hard enough ("this clearly wasn't my best") which, then, makes it hard to work at all ("what's the point?")
I recently heard an interview by Ira Glass that helps put things in perspective:
I've spent the past nine months in the following cycle: work, nap, eat, worry, sleep, and repeat. I spent such a disproportionate time thinking about work, that I began neglecting everything else.
And that's not how I want to live.
It's time to grow up.
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