Good morning all,
I hope this snowy New England day finds you all well. As a teacher, I find that sometimes my life is pretty good. Snow days are the best surprise days off ever. This one happened to coincide with a generally tired mood, and some overall frustration with the profession/life. In short, necessary or not, it felt like it.
In response, I'm trying to find all the positivity and inspiration I can during the day today. My girlfriend and her family help with this, as does just having a break from the students. It's the time of year that unerringly leads to strife between teacher and student. Everyone's cooped up together, and there isn't enough sun time and active time for everyone to be happy. Maybe I'm personalizing a bit, but it seems to me that no matter what students I have, how interesting I think my lesson plans are, and how well prepared and research based my instruction, this is a time of year where the best laid plains of mice and men are subverted by the season.
I want to be the reason kids want to come to school, to learn things. I want to find the passion I have for math and for teaching it, and share that with my students. Instead, I seem to be finding naught but roadblocks and anger and frustration at not understanding. Worse, the students aren't emotionally mature enough to realize that their frustration should be directed inwardly to help them find more motivation, instead of outwardly at me and what a terrible teacher I am.
So how do I find and keep the joy it requires to let the strife, teenage angst and stress of my job wash over me? Maybe today I'll start by watching the snow gently rest on the ground, its fractal nature coalescing in such lovely preponderance.
Have a lovely day all,
~Mark
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