The realization I had while grading papers at Pacific Coffee:
When I was in high school, I had a difficult time completing work if I knew the teacher was probably not going to look at it very thoroughly. In other words, if it was something that I suspected the teacher would quickly skim over to check for completion, I was one of the guys who would frequently write nonsense in the spaces provided so that I could look like I had done work, when in fact I hadn’t. I’m sure I wasn’t unique in this, so why is this a revelation? hmmm… not exactly sure.
I guess I’m wondering how this affects my tendencies as a teacher today, both in the effort I put into planning for lessons and in the extent to which I respond to student work. 1. I function much better when I have regular accountability in my job performance… If I know my lesson has the potential to be observed or critiqued by my supervisor, I inevitably put more work into it. 2. I have a real difficulty with assigning student work and then correcting it. I want to assign quality assignments (as opposed to just busy work)… but then I face the inevitable reality of time constraints when it comes to grading that work. I simply cannot give quality feedback as much as I would like.
P.S. Today I felt like a crappy teacher and I almost slammed my fist down on a Pacific Coffee table in frustration. I hate that feeling… and I hate the fact that I get angry about it. So basically there’s a lot of hate. And then I wrote in my journal… “It’s okay. God, thanks for being God.” And then I listened to U2, “sometimes you can’t make it on your own.” neither of those actions solves the anger issue or makes me a better teacher, but I got through the moment. so here I am. done.
