In the summer of 2008, I finished my last, regular classes for my degree. Although I did have a class and a project to complete for my internship and first year of teaching, it didn't have a textbook, it met once every other week, and we mostly talked about how teaching was going. When I turned in my final project in December of my first year of teaching, I slipped my 80 page packet of pain, tears, and teaching into my professor's box with feelings of elation and unreality. I was
done. I wrote several blogs about the idea. The idea that I was no longer a student, having been one since I entered preschool at the age of four was liberating and paralyzing.
Months, years, school days, holidays, and summer vacations passed. I found out that many of the teachers around me were headed to classes in the evenings and during summers, accruing credits toward extra endorsements and advanced degrees. Frankly, I thought they were nuts. No way was I going to try and be a teacher--with lessons to prepare, exhausting days to teach, and endless papers to grade--and add into that the stress of assignments of my own to read, prepare, and submit. I couldn't fathom having to grade end of the term projects and also make time to take a final for my own education. So for years, every time someone came to a faculty meeting to recruit for an online university, or passed out fliers for classes offered through the district, I would quietly snort in derision. Besides, my life was never stable enough. Where I would be teaching next year, or if I would be teaching the next year, always seemed up in the air.
Then, things changed. I got to a school where I'm not the lowest teacher on the totem pole, a place I can anticipate staying at for a few years, even if I change subjects (I've yet to teach the same class line up two years in a row.). Then, I committed to teaching for at least four or five more years, at my current school, unless something unexpected and drastic happens in my life (a change in marital status, a quarter-life crisis, etc.). Therefore, I've been going back to school. I take a once a week class for my G/T Endorsement, and I take a once a month teaching American history class, and I'm partway through a independent study history course on ancient world history.
After three or more years of not being a student, being back in class is both a familiar and a strange feeling. My reactions to being back in the seat instead of up in front have been mixed. I have noticed that
--I'm a worse student than I used to be. After getting used to the hectic pace of teaching, I have a hard time sitting still and devoting all my attention to one slow- or medium-paced thing at a time. I tend to make sarcastic comments to the other people at my table and do three things at once while listening (like blogging). I notice all the other teachers are just as bad.
--Being a student is not as exciting as teaching. As a teacher, you are continually in the spotlight, always the center of attention, and the constant star of the show. As a student, you are at the mercy of others' interests, schedules, and are nearly anonymous. As a teacher, things are constantly changing. The students change every few hours, the circumstances change, when I'm bored, I mix up the lesson and change how I teach. I am continually doing three things at once, and usually I'm mentally scanning ahead to the next five things I need to do. However, as a student, I sit. I take notes. I listen. I accept what's handed to me. It get's boring after about six hours.
--Being a student is a lot easier and more relaxing than being a teacher. Today I got to put my feet up on a chair in front of me, surf the internet while taking notes, and learn fascinating things about the constitution taught to me by skilled teachers. I got to do this while wearing jeans and a hoodie. Nobody asked me to solve their problems ranging from not having a pencil, having had a Red Bull for lunch and now their hyper, to the fact that their parents are divorced and they spent the weekend at their dad's and they left their bookbag there and so they don't have their project and won't be able to bring it to me for a week and a half. For once, I get to sit back, open up my mind, and take in information in a relaxed manner, instead of being a continuously playing one-man-band, eight hours a day, five days a week, with papers to grade and lessons to prepare in between. I remember when my biggest problems were getting my three papers in at the right time and completing cleaning checks on time. That was hard. But it was individual; it was my problem and my own neck on the line. As a teacher, I have over two hundred kids waiting to get their papers back, their parents are waiting to see their students' grades, administrators waiting for my compiled and analyzed data, and students waiting daily to be entertained and educated. Then there is of course the bills waiting to paid, nutritious food waiting to be prepared and eaten, a dirty apartment to be cleaned, friends to be kept in contact with, and perhaps exercise and recreation or relaxation to keep myself sane.
Becoming a part-time student in addition to my teaching has made me busier: classes and homework take time. However, except for giving me less time to complete everything else I need to do, it has not made me any more stressed. Compared to everything else I do, my work as a student is quite relaxing, though time consuming. It does make me almost wish for those good old days of student hood. Where you finished
all of your assignments every four months and tossed a finished class neatly into the past. Now I'm never done with everything until summer vacation, and summer vacation is more than a month shorter than it was when I was in college. No one hands me a two-page syllabus that contains everything I'll need to do to make them happy clearly defined. My responsibilities are nebulous, often self-defined, and ongoing.
Honestly, I love teaching, and every year it seems to be easier for me, and every year I feel like I get better at it and do better by my students.
Honestly--and it may be the fault of the winter blues, the dating game, or the school year being in the murky middle of its run--I'm feeling a little burnt out.
