The interim reports are about to be sent home, and my students have become afflicted with the Fear. They come to me at all times with palms outspread begging for absolution for half a semester of apathetic stares, classroom clowning, innumerable absences, and missing work. The teachers with experience warned me. Handouts enable academic apathy and lower standards, they explained. It hurts to be harsh, but they'll rise to your standards. I knew that they knew better, and their advice ran true. Yet I chose to ignore their advice, and give the students the chance they begged for.
The result: burn out and disillusionment
Bombarded with make-up work at the end of each grading period, I would grade for hours and hours at books-a-million with no end in sight. Students who came in for make up work managed, after much effort, to only pull their grades up to a D or not at all (thus wasting both of our time). Foolish as I was, despite all of this, I still believed in giving the students a chance to succeed.
It's not until now, when I've taken an extra teaching load and literally CAN'T give them that chance, that I'm realizing the truth about what those other teachers said. It's like I'm seeing it with new eyes: these same students who despite my constant promptings, refocusing, encouragement, and calls home throughout the semester, managed to get nothing of substance completed and are now begging for handouts at my door. And they do it, because they know they can get away with it. Accomplishing the absolute minimum passing grade by putting in no effort during the class, a bit of shameless begging, and a whole lot of copying at the end of the semester was their goal from the start.
Honestly, it's a heart-breaking, frustrating, and infuriating realization. However, it's a lesson I could only learn by experience. Were I to merely follow those gems of wisdom given by my coworkers without fully understanding why, I would inevitably revert back to my naive reasoning of second chances. Just one more challenge faced and overcome in my journey towards becoming the best educator I can be. I feel I am so much better for it.
This is not applicable to your post, but you don't have an email linked to your profile, so I can't reply to comments on my blog. Thanks for your comment love, I am just pretty discouraged. I am not married, so no help there, and I did look at my return again and the district only withdrew $11,000...which is still over 25% and I still think I should be getting more back. I have never gotten less than $500 back, even when I made slightly more than I do now. I am going to talk to my district tomorrow, because I have long held that there is something off on my check, as they remove $1000 a month (over 1/4). But thanks again...
ReplyDeleteAlso, you should consider using your gmail account (or another dedicated email account) for blog comments or enabling your profile to show an email address. I finally did the first option and get a lot more feedback.