disconnect

I'm a little crestfallen about the whole teaching thing.  Somebody told me once I was a natural, and when I was observed a couple weeks ago, they said I was doing exactly what I should be doing.  My problem is getting the students to interact more, remember the material...and show up to class.  Those are pretty big problems.  Hence why I think maybe teaching isn't for me.

And it's not easy to worry about my quality as an educator at this particular moment in history.  In the last year teachers have been criticized for earning too much money and too many benefits for working "only 9 months," demonized when those bad apples got caught changing students' answers, and just generally crapped on.  How do you suppose young teachers are feeling right now?  Well, I think I know how the unemployed ones are feeling...you get this Masters degree and then all you can find is subbing unless you move (and uproot your family perhaps) across the country.  And the employed ones?  They face the constant threat of lay-offs, often seniority-based.  Then there's my primary fear:  that I'm not good enough.

I wish I could just take my brain and copy and paste it onto the students, but that's not how it works.  I've been seeing some good interaction from particular students, some smiles and even a few proverbial light bulbs when something clicks in their heads.  But the first midterm was brutal.  And I'm having trouble not thinking that it is my fault.  My questions were either too difficult or badly written, or my lectures aren't memorable enough.  But they have the textbook, which lays it all out.  They haven't done too badly on the homework.  It all boils down to effort I think.  My effort and theirs.

And there's a major disconnect:  I'm putting my all into this, and consequently taking all the badness onto my shoulders.  Many of the students are too quick with an excuse, and they don't show me any willingness to work harder.  That shows on their grades.  And on my own grade for myself.