This past Friday was a horrible day for me. From my stand point as a teacher, I felt like there was nothing I did right the entire day. I was very flustered, disorganized, uninspiring, short tempered, and just not a very good teacher. I felt like I spent hours of time prepping a 50 minute lesson that looked like I took 15 minutes to plan...and the worst of all is I took my frustrations out on my students by having such a poor attitude the entire day. I was basically throwing a temper-tantrum because things were not going my way.
While I was getting ready for my cross country period, my last class of the day, I noticed something while I was waiting in the hallway. I saw a co-worker who I knew was also having a bad day, and this teacher was absolutely yelling at the top of her lungs at her students because someone had threw a bottle cap or something silly like that. While I was standing there the only thing that crossed my mind was "wow...is it really that big of a deal?" But I realized that what I was seeing was exactly what I was acting out the previous 5 hours of that day.
I have been doing a lot of thinking this weekend, mainly about how I'm going to show up on Monday and do a better job. As I think about all my short comings of one day and turn it in to a career ending event (at least in my head), I realize that in the grand scheme of things it is just one day. I know that when my students show up tomorrow the furthest thing from their minds will be how "good" our class was on Friday, even though that will be the only thing I think of. I'm not so naive to think that my 8th grade social studies class is going to be a life changing event for my students, but I like to treat my class in this manner...I want my class to be something special.
The bottom line is I want a better education for my students. I constantly think of the things that turned me off from school when I was their age and that is my motivation to try harder at my profession. I could very easily be an average teacher and just do the bare minimum but I don't want to, I want to have days like Friday where I just absolutely crush myself for having an off day. I want to be disappointed in myself from time to time because I'm not content with the job I'm doing as a teacher. As stupid as it sounds, I love being miserable occasionally because I know eventually it will lead to fantastic outcomes in my life and hopefully my students lives as well...and more importantly, I want them to be able to see that I care through my instruction.
I suppose because I'm such a gluten for punishment that makes me ideal for the teaching profession...here's to a better week.
Mr. McClung
Fayetteville, AR
http://McClungsWorld.com
4 comments:
It isn't unusual to have a bad day. Did you try to change your attitude when you realized you were in a bad mood? I remember walking in to my classroom and telling my students I was in a bad mood and they need to suck it up. They usually did a great job with that. It is nice to know that being honest with them yields dividends.
Hello my name is Kindra Blackwell and I attend the University of South Alabama. I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class. I definantely understand having a bad day. I work for at a school's after school program. I often take out my bad days on my class. I feel terrible when I do this. The children can definantely tell when something is up. You just need to stay positive and keep your chin up!!
I teach 4K and when it is a "bad" day it seems like the children act worse than they ever have. I've learned that it's my impatience with them that makes me think that they are acting worse.
Especially at a young age, I feel that they can sense when I'm in a bad mood (even if I try my best to hide it). That affects them. Just like you, I want them to have a wonderful experience, so I've tried to change my attitude because my bad mood is NOT because of them, so it shouldn't be taken out on them.
Everyone has bad days, yells and makes mistakes. We just have to learn from what we have done wrong, and try our best not to do it again
I have had a bad year so far. I was assigned to teach an elective class that I know nothing about. There are other teahcers on our staff that have taught this before but our dept chair assigned it to me. It was a vindictive move on her part. I spend more time getting ready for this class than I do my AP English Literature class. I think that it is so very unfair but my principal said that I am stuck with it for this year. I try to create interesting activites but it takes sooooooooo much time.
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