It comes down to reality, it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide

Blog – Semester Reflections

As anyone who has been reading my blog could probably guess, it’s a little hard right now for me to pull back from my season with the (eagles), but I’ll try.

My semester has nosedived as of late. I’ve lost energy motivation and creativity. My mom suspects that I’m depressed, but I can’t believe that. I am not a very good teacher. My management is terrible, my lesson planning unoriginal, boring, and not especially helpful for my students. It certainly isn’t research based, or anything else that it should be,

I hate the block schedule. With a passion. Ben told me that in two years as a teacher, he never did any group work. While in a lot of ways I wouldn’t want to run my classroom as Ben says he ran his, but I would have liked to go away with groupwork, at least for the first year. 98 minutes means that I have to do that crap, everyday. I have to do something, because it’s impossible to lecture, do guided practice, and then some individual work for ninety-eight minutes, straight. It’s impossible to do anything for 98 minutes. I’m starting to think it’s impossible to remain sane for 98 minutes.

I was three times the teacher I am now before I started coaching. That said, though, I was probably having less total impact on students then. I would love to just coach and work at Dollar General or something. Or coach and tutor – that would be perfect. Not that I am a very good coach either; I’ve been lucky enough to inherit a group of boys who have been ready to explode on the scene for a year or two, but have just lacked a little direction and intensity, which I have tried to give them. They are amazing, and they make me believe that things can be ok.

But back to being a teacher. My kids hate me, and hate my class, even my good kids, because I don’t keep the bad kids under control. They wouldn’t even be bad, if I had some clearer expectations for them. Well, some of them would be bad. But most of the kids that consistently give me trouble are FINE in other people’s classes. FINE. They only act up in my class because I let them get away with it. The worst part is, even worse than the fact that they drive me crazy, is that they irritate the kids who actually want to learn, who, I think, might actually make up half of my students. One student even drew a cartoon of me throwing a desk at and cursing out the disruptive girls my first block. “Anybody else wanna F- wit da real MR. G? Anybody? Well shut the F – up!”

Dan says I ought to blog about our recent stop at the doublequick. We’re headed up to Oxford, it’s 11:21 PM on a Friday, and this have become somewhat of a ritual with us, a pilgrimage, We’ve left later, but of all the Oxford weekends, I think we’ve only once arrived in the hotel before midnight, We always stop at the same doublequick, somehow, and stock up on Rockstars. Dan likes the purple fruity one, while I prefer the mango one in the orange can. I had never experienced the wonder of such beverages until these Friday night drives made them indispensable, along with the snickers, hostess cupcakes, and other delectables that contribute to Mississippi being the fattest state in the union.
There really has been a magic to these rides. How could there not be, when we spend our time alternating between states of half-conciousness and chemically induced super-consciousness. After an extraordinarily exhausting week of teaching – isn’t every week of teaching extraordinarily exhausting - the last thing I tend to need is this drive, but it is somehow refreshing in it’s insanity. By the time we drive through the kudzu-covered holly springs state forest, bizarrely nowhere near holly springs, I’m usually starting to see things on the side of the road that aren’t there. The night that we got caught in the thunderstorm was a night to remember as well – driving 45 mph and still barely able to see ten feet in front of me. Or the trip up with Ward, when we somehow missed a turn and found ourselves altogether too close to Memphis.

I’ve got to decide whether to go to class tomorrow or to skip and go be a coach. I’ve almost certainly decided to skip class. I’ve decided the difference between an A and a B is pretty minimal – I’m already out of the running for the award for teachercorps GPA, or will be after tomorrow’s lack of presentation in my methods class, so WTF, right? Besides that, tonight’s loss was really hard to stomach, and I’d hate to abandon my kids after that. They are knocking on the door, so close to achieving something. Achieving something means winning, or even drawing a single game. They’ve lost every game for the past 3 years. Every single game. We’ve no taken the lead in two matches, and lost both 3-2. I must be doing something wrong as a coach, because we can’t seem to hold a lead. We get too excited by the prospect of winning – I am as guilty of this as every one of my players. I love the kids so much, and I really need to lead them to a victory – just one.

But I was supposed to be writing a semester review? A semester evaluation? What was it called? A semester reflection. Goodbye yellow brick road? No. This is harder than I ever thought, and I need some help. I am not doing a good job. I need some inspiration. My kids are ready to revolt, and in a lot of ways, I don’t blame them – I’d probably be ready to revolt too, if I were my own student. At the same time, though, I don’t know that I could try any harder, if that is some kind of consolation. All we need is just a little patience. I need to start off the next semester as a hard-ass, especially in my algebra II class, which will be a brand new group of kids. Hard ass. If I say it enough, maybe I’ll believe it. Firm expectations. A good plan. Better procedures. Better lesson planning. Everything needs to be better, but I don’t think things could get much worse, so that’s something. The only thing that shouldn’t change is the soccer team. And even that could use a little boost in the victories column.