teacher realities

A post on Teacher Thought Bubble was recently brought to my attention by my friend (and fellow teacher) Caitlin. I can't get it out of my head, probably because it reflects exactly how I've been feeling lately.  It goes like this:

THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE (TEACHER) YEAR

September:

February:

May:

I love it. I still remember listening to "Vivir Mi Vida" by Marc Anthony every morning on the way to school those first couple of months, super pumped about everything. That September .gif describes me to a T. But it also perpetuates the "roses and daisies" view of life that social media tends to perpetuate. So then we arrive to February. Or in my case, November.

This particular section of the original post doesn't apply to me. I was never bored. I was always being challenged by my students and myself to be better, to do better. As my students would say, #thestruggleisreal. This would pretty much sum me up, starting in November.

Sometimes I felt like I was constantly trying and getting a running start, and then something would knock me down and I'd have to start over and pick myself back up. Probably daily! Most days feel like a constant struggle, especially being a traveling teacher. I left those copies here, my computer there, quizzes in that classroom, and my brain at home in my bed because the 3-4 hours of sleep it received the night before was not sufficient.

Then we get to May. Almost six months later with that gif happening daily.

Everything hurts and I'm dying. Seriously. It does. And it is starting to show, I know it is. Since December I have gotten engaged, bought a house (and a project), and taken 6 hours of grad classes, one of which involved putting together an entire health fair for Hispanics in Bowling Green. All while teaching and being responsible for 150 students aged 12-17.

For those of you who don't know, I am very passionate about my job. It is not something I leave at 3:30. And still most days it is not enough. I want to be it all--- a good lesson planner, a good implementer, a good grader, an encouraging colleague, a role model, and just plain on top of all the extra duties given to a teacher 100% of the time while also being organized, a good graduate student, fiancé, daughter, and friend. Who is renovating a house. I want it all!! Does such a teacher or person exist? To quote Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "I never saw such a woman. She would certainly be a fearsome thing to behold." Okay, maybe Hermione. But she had a time turner.

I found myself asking a friend the other day, could I just have the hours that people waste laying on the couch, playing video games, and all around not really living life? Because I want to live life and I want it to be full. But I'm finding sometimes there just isn't enough hours in the day.  And I have to let myself be okay with that sometimes. I have to be okay with my bed not being made like I want it to be. I have to be okay with the fact that I left those copies at the other school and now I have 2 minutes to modify the lesson. I have to be okay with the fact that I did not respond to that student in the calm and completely mature way that I had meant to when he asked for the directions that I already explained twice. I have to be okay with the fact that I'm human and I'm not perfect.

But that doesn't mean I have given up. I will never give up trying to become that teacher and that person. Maybe one day I will cause someone to think "What a fearsome woman to behold!" (Side note-I really wish people still talked like this...)

Coming back to the original purpose of this blog, I have to discover apricity in everything I do. I may feel like everything hurts and I'm dying. But would I change any of that for the experiences I have had this year? No, not for a second. Through the craziness, I have loved it all. I have met beautiful and amazing people and lived beautiful and amazing experiences. Are there 10 million things I think I could have done better and should have done better as an educator and as a person? Definitely. Did I have a learning experience from every single one of those 10 million things?  Yes.

I recently went through something where I had to make an important decision. If you know me very well, I'm not great at making decisions. It's just getting worse with age. I want to make sure I have weighed every positive and negative, beat it with a hammer, and then beat it with a hammer again to make sure it's dead and there's no possibility I should have taken the other path. As it turns out, not everyone appreciates this thoroughness. And I get it...in the real world everything has a timetable. Right or wrong, it's reality.

So I ended up not getting what I had decided on. But you know what? I have given it over to God, like I should have done in the first place. I actually think he was leading me back to the path He originally wanted me to take. Even if it's not exactly what I thought I wanted, He knows me better than I know myself.

"'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" 

-Jeremiah 29:11

-Katie