Hello all, I write to you on a rather weary Sunday night. I'm so glad tomorrow is not a teaching day, just a workshop to attend and I can handle that. If teaching was all workshops how happy I would be.
As per my title, I find myself in the unfamiliar position of realizing that the career I thought would last me until retirement might not be for me at all. I can't say it's a sudden realization either. It's been creeping up on me since both my practicums and now is overpowering me in waves.
Now, I'm a person that's always been relatively sure in life and done pretty much what I set out to do. Sorry if this sounds egotistical but its true. I haven't done anything really grand but whatever I thought was important was duly carried out. Then came teaching. Again I set out like a good little soldier, applied and was accepted to the Education program, then began classes. That's where things started to go awry. I never really once thought I might be doing the wrong thing or that a career goal I set at the age of 11 might've changed over the years.
In my first practicum I just about died from dehydration as I found myself in tears almost every time I returned from my school. In my second I went in fully equipped with a water bottle and tried valiantly to avoid becoming a prune. Now I have a classroom and the situation hasn't improved as I'm approaching raisin status.
They should tell you during your practicum that you will feel like you have no idea what you're doing that first year. And I mean, NO IDEA. I usually feel like I'm banging my head against the proverbial brick wall. Oh wait, I do have a brick wall I can literally smash my head into but I think it would be bad form. As an introvert having myself on constant display is exhausting and I'm drained by the time lunch rolls around. It seems everyone else knows what they're doing but me and I can't seem to catch up. My kids trail me everywhere and won't stop asking questions (obviously questions are good but its incessant and usually off topic), though that's probably in part because I'm not getting information across very well. I spend my evenings fretting and fussing over lessons or sometimes staring at paper until the letters begin to blur because my brain has ceased to operate. And still I don't know how to reach the different levels in my classroom. The weekends are a welcome break until Sunday night rears its ugly head and my stomach knots, my hands become clammy and I continually wake up through the night. I don't think its a healthy way to be.
That was an extremely long winded way of saying my next move is probably to stop doing this and recover my appetite and sleep patterns. Its a first for me but maybe its a good thing? If you made it this far down my post I congratulate you. It looks more like a diary entry.
Check back for updates on my dissipating sanity! I promise my next post will be more lighthearted.
2 comments:
You could move back to Japan and teach to adults. Or maybe teaching of a different type, age, or setting. Maybe other teachers can give you some advice in not strangling the children.
Rob
Can you find a mentor of some kind to give you advice on this? Being thrown into a real teaching situation is always nerve-wracking, but especially so for real teachers (as opposed to us, heh). I really hope you can figure it out, and if not, that you can do some soul-searching, nail down other things you'd like to pursue and how to do so, and just go for it. It's never too late.
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