One day left. One day of teaching left.

Until September starts and then the countdown begins again at 180 days. I never expected to feel like a teacher when I completed this. And I don't really. I've played the roll for 5 weeks, but I still haven't really unpacked what that means. I'm a high school teacher. That is my profession, not my job, whatever that means. I'm going to be someone's teacher for a school year. Completely responsible for their knowledge of the events of the world that have occurred since the Neolithic Revolution. As much as I've done during institute I still have a hard time placing myself in the right mindset. For example, calling parents makes me feel queasy. I feel like who am I to call these people and tell them that they're child is a terrible student who refuses to come to class on time? We're having a parent breakfast tomorrow and I'm terrified they're going to look at me and ask how the hell are you qualified to teach my child? And I would have to tell them, well, I'm not exactly.

Part of the realization that I'm not ready for this responsibility came when I was teaching about World War II. We were going to look at pictures taken from concentration camps during the Holocaust and analyze them and answer questions. I sort of figured that this would be familiar to them. Surely, as 10-12th graders they knew what the Holocaust was. They would know the atrocities. We opened the page with the photos with starved men, children behind barbed wire and ovens where cremation took place. They looked up at me, so attentive, some responding verbally with disbelief and others waiting for some explanation. When I talked about what took place, about how undesirables were killed right away, how others were gassed, taken to the showers, etc. they didn't know what to say. They had so many questions, "why didn't they escape? why would Hitler do this? why didn't someone do something?" We stopped the formal analysis and just talked about it. I had overestimated their knowledge. I hadn't prepared them for this information. I wasn't ready to present this information. And I don't know when I will be.

Part of the greatest challenges of this whole thing has been coming to terms with my own inadequacies. It's hard to fail on a regular basis. It constantly instills self doubt, and plays games with your confidence. And as much as teaching is not a competition, part of my own craziness and part of the personalities TFA recruits makes it so. Everyone is critical of themselves (and perhaps silently you). Nothing is ever good enough. It's a fascinating study of self-flagellation. It's frustrating to see someone accomplish something with ease when you can't even begin to approach it with any level of competency. You're constantly measuring yourself against others, and their skills and your lack thereof. Jealousy has a strange way of creeping into every part of you and rearranging the rest of your emotions as it sees fit. I realize that this experience is not about comparing myself to others but rather improving for myself, and my future students. It doesn't matter if the other history teacher's lesson went better than mine did. It just matters that mine went better than it did the day before and that students are actually learning. Ahh learning, that's for another post.

I'm sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn, enjoying the stolen time that I have here each weekend. This is the last Sunday I'll have to pack up my bag and get on the L to the G to the E to the Q46 to the ten minute walk back to campus. I have no desire to go back. No desire to get up tomorrow at 5:30 and teach World War I. No desire to work on my lesson plans and make worksheets. Thank god there is only 4 days left of teaching and a half day of bullshit. I'm at my breaking point and so sick of the routine and of institute that I can hardly stand it. I want to wake up in Brooklyn, in my own bed, and eat the food that I make myself and talk to people that I actually have something in common with. I'm tired of only seeing my friends two days a week and then having to walk out the door on Sunday while they sit on our couch and wave goodbye. Although looking back, it's hard to believe that this time has passed, and that I'm almost done, I'm stretched as far as I can go. I'm ready for the end.

Fellow history teachers at my school. I like them, which is good.

Dear TFA,

I get it. You win. You push people and push people and send them into the fire and then they break and then you feel good about yourself.
I get it.

The girl who teaches American History in the class next to me quit on Thursday. One of four at my school. We have seven more days of teaching left. I thought if someone made it this far it would be like the home stretch. But it's as hard as it's ever been. Harder, perhaps, because we're told we should be improving, we should be making gains, we should have some things figured out by now. And some people do. And that makes it harder. Harder still, is the faster that institute ends means the closer the beginning of my real teaching begins. The real responsibility, the real job. I think the thought of doing this much work for two years is scaring people out of it.

I'm also having issues with some of the practices I'm constantly being told to work on. Hand raising is one of these procedures. That, and the being too firm thing which I mentioned. I'm too relaxed in class, I speak in a voice that's too natural and generally walk around asking their opinion. Which apparently doesn't "invest" the students enough in the work, they don't take it seriously enough. I also like to have discussions with them. When we do that, and I ask them questions/opinions, etc. sometimes the form get a little relaxed and people just begin talking. I don't like stifling the conversation so I let the hand raising go. I do understand why this can be a problem. Loud kids dominate the conversation, quiet kids get looked over. I can't get everyone' opinion. They're not really advanced enough to have the type of open discussion. It's just hard for me stop doing something I enjoy.

On a positive note (someone commented this blog can be all negative) the kids really do impress me. We talked about humanism today, and I was so excited they got the idea. Actually imparting knowledge on someone is a strange feeling. Watching them think through things and "get" something is the best feeling. These kids actually listen to me. They take notes and answer questions. They consider me their teacher. It's that responsibility that makes me dread/love going to school every morning. It's what makes this so hard.

A conversation I had/observed while teaching Christianity/Judaism and looking at the 10 commandments:

Student One: "What does this mean? Covet?"
Me: "Okay, I'll give you some synonyms. For example: I like your shoes, I want your shoes for myself. I covet your shoes."
S: "Oh, like you're jealous. Well, why shouldn't I covet my neighbor's wife? If I want to bag my neighbor's wife, I'm gonna bag my neighbor's wife."
Student Two: "No stupid. That's a sin. You can't do that. It's like one of those seven deadly ones, like lying, and umm, being overweight."

I'm assuming she was referring to gluttony. Maybe I should have asked her to clarify.