A Crisis of Faith

Growing up in the church, I learned about a moment that occurs often in the life of young Christians.  It's a type of rite of passage for those who practice their faith based on blind acceptance of Sunday School lessons.  This is called a "Crisis of Faith".  When they occur, the young Christian begins to doubt their beliefs and even the genuineness of their own devotion.

In Ed. school, I learned that teachers also go through a crisis of faith.  Usually around the fifth year, there is a spike in teacher turnover.  Usually at this time, teachers are facing burn out or a fizzling of their passion to teach.

My fifth year teaching was the hardest of my career.  I was teaching for the first time at an urban school and facing large class sizes, universal student apathy, and fiercely defensive parents.  I can't tell if the pain I felt then was any sort of crisis of faith.  I think I was more concerned with surviving the year than reflecting deeply on my role and passion for my profession.

In my time teaching, I have gotten numerous positive reviews.  Administrators, colleagues, and students have all affirmed my methods for pedagogy and valued my opinion.  But now, for the first time, I am struggling with an administrator that doubts most of my methods and decisions in the classroom.  It is disconcerting to say the least.  His doubt feeds my own doubt and I sometimes feel tortured about my own insecurities.  It hurts too.  Hurts deeply to know that I may have failed at the profession I have invested so much time and love into.

Students and colleagues still affirm that my classroom is relevant, meaningful, engaging, and useful, but conversation after conversation with this administrator somehow manages to destroy all that in my mind.  It makes me wonder if I made the right choice after all.  If after all of this time doing this, I had somehow become a bad teacher without knowing it.

There was one colleague I knew once who read all the literature, did countless hours of research and conferences, employed a variety of engaging and effective teaching strategies, and was hated by her students.    On paper, everything pointed to her being a great teacher.  IN her own mind, she was a great teacher.  She worked tirelessly, like at a hamster wheel, to do what a good teacher does.  But in the end, it all meant nothing because her students didn't buy it.  There was something soulless about the way she employed those techniques that gave the content an unnatural pallor that was a turn off to students.  I fear that my teaching might someday become that.  A soulless bag of tricks.  OR has it become that and I didn't even realize it.  Like that colleague.

I have met teachers with 20+ years of experience who are my idols.  The craft they employ into this profession is so perfect, so relevant, so elegant, that I wonder if I could ever aspire to be that good.  Is there a way to overcome this crises and move on to a stronger, better classroom?