expectations

When we interviewed for/were accepted to/started the program, they all warned us: “it’s intense.” Looking back now, college was pretty easy and undemanding. Summer classes were simple without anything else to complicate them: wake up, go to class, do homework, hang out, go to bed, repeat. I would love to have that simplicity back again– maybe I’d appreciate it this time! Because now, halfway into the semester (well, a little past halfway now at 9 weeks– yay), I’m starting to really see what they meant when they warned it’d be intense. Social life? I don’t have one of those anymore. Boyfriend time? Thankfully still existent, but I’m not as awake as I used to/would like to be. Roommate time? Pretty much nonexistent. Family time? Happens, but with caveats (“I haaaave to leave by 7 to do homework!,” etc.). Laundry, keeping my room clean, and cooking? You can pretty much forget it. I’m thankful I don’t have to work to support myself, but sustaining myself in a semi-healthy way with food is pretty hard when the budget is shared with gas and any potential fun stuff (little of that these days).

The first eight weeks of this fall semester, when people would ask how grad school was going, my response was usually something like “classes are hard, but I love student teaching.” Which is totally true. Sometimes it was a little more optimistic, sometimes a little more on the complaining/ranting/”woe is me”/”my schoolwork is so hard and I think I’m the worst student there and maybe I even have a learning disorder because it definitely feels like it” side of things. But then it got– dare I say it– worse. I was able to separate my classes (which I felt waaay behind in) and my student teaching (which, while exhausting, was super fun and I felt kind of competent at, despite sleepy mornings) for awhile, but then my FA (at the risk of overusing parentheses, FA = faculty associate = elementary school teacher whose classroom I am in almost all year) started asking me about assignments from my classes. Like what I needed to do, what I needed from him/the students, when it was due by, etc. And I didn’t always know. That, my friends, is embarrassing. Sometimes I’d make excuses and sometimes I’d be completely honest and a lot of the time it was a combination of the two because that’s what it was. I didn’t know because I wasn’t paying close enough attention because why would I when we don’t talk about anything relevant for the other 2.75 hours of the class and the least the teacher could do would be to provide a bullet point hard copy list of expectations and due dates, and treat us as students the way we are learning that we are supposed to treat ours, with scaffolding and just a few directions at a time and all that? Sorry, frustrations make me write run-on sentences sometimes.

So, I digress. The point of writing this was that I think I’ve kind of realized something. I was okay with not being great in my classes, because the way I saw it, that only hurt myself. I could always go back and re-read/watch/listen to the lectures, re-read my notes and the handouts, ask for help from my classmates; but student teaching really mattered to me. And it still does. But it’s tough because I still always feel like I’m being compared to something. I don’t even know what. It’s not the other girls in my classes, because my FA doesn’t know most of them. It’s not the other two student teachers at my school, because… well, I don’t know, I just feel comfortable around them and their FAs and I think they all like us quite a bit. It’s a fun group. It’s not even my FA’s student teacher from last year, because I heard she was a train wreck… but in a way, there’s still some pressure there to beat her. She clearly got into the program for some reason, so I hesitate to think she’s a complete mess.

It’s starting to feel like the expectation for this program, and student teaching, and classes, and all that, is skewed. The way the normal world works, average is average for a reason. Don’t get me wrong, I went to a decent high school and a pretty good college. And my major wasn’t the hardest by any means, but it wasn’t the easiest either. I have some reeeeally smart friends. I am constantly in the company of brilliant, intellectual, socially competent people. So I’ve gotten over the “average” thing awhile ago, at least I thought. But when it comes to these classes and student teaching, it’s like the expectation– the “average”– is to be an overachiever. Come up with lesson ideas on your own. Create new ways to teach them. Implement new teaching techniques and practices into the classroom community. Badapadapadap. (That’s what we say in the classroom instead of “dot dot dot.” The students think it’s hilarious.) And I’m sorry, world of education, but I am a little too exhausted to go above and beyond so consistently. IT’S EXHAUSTING! I feel like I am constantly just scraping by, and it’s becoming increasingly embarrassing, not to mention ineffective. I know the point of being in the program is to learn– we wouldn’t be here if we already knew how to be excellent teachers, or just good teachers even. But I have no idea how I’m supposed to be able to handle this all! Am I missing something?…

I’ll shut up for now. Here’s to a cup of warm apple cider while I finish a big lesson plan that was due today, and hopefully a better week next week. Oh, and Eeyore, because… this. Boyfriend is the best 😉