Frankly, I'm amazed by the predictability in general of the average TFAer's year. We were even given line graphs way back in the summer that showed us about how our lives would be going throughout the year. Sure enough, the biggest trench into despair was predicted to be in October/November, and the steady increase in hope would be halted by the month of February. It's scary, but somebody has this down to a science.
In truth, since the beginning of the month, things haven't been too bad I don't think... of course with our week off, I have been spending the last seven days in as much vacation-mode as I can manage. I made time to enjoy a San Francisco beach with visiting company, as well as a local hike to watch mating newts. Best of all, our apartment complex teaching crew made it up to Lake Tahoe for the week and I found the time (and money) to experience Heavenly Ski Resort on both a snowboard as well as skis. Snow could have been better, but the weather gave it the best views I have ever seen from a mountain. I highly recommend.
Of course this also marks the first trip taken with all teachers, and cramming 11 type-A personalities into a cabin for six has scarred me a little. Although I have found that in comparison, I am one of the better ones at turning off the stress and relaxing (who knew, right?). Unfortunately, such relaxation comes with a price - specifically, $15 co-pay at the hospital and $17 for a thumb stabilizer after spraining my thumb at the end of the second day. I will admit that the fall leading to this injury is directly related to a stupid choice that was made in an exhausted state of mind. One of the girls on the trip has skied since she was two and was a ski instructor, so we covered the entire mountain. Of course, back in Oakland today was a hard dose of reality, especially as I sat in the radiology waiting room before an x-ray.
In fact, I don't think I'm ready to get back in teacher mode quite yet, but already I'm hearing about another Richmond shooting, this time in a church during mass this past week. You would think that this kind of thing would make me fear for my safety at Richmond High, but really it makes me fear the fact that this is what a lot of the students turn to when they cannot graduate from high school. It makes me think of the fact that I gave failing grades to half of my students this past semester, and looking at each students' report cards, they are failing a lot of other classes too. On the one hand, I am happy that I not doing something wrong compared to other teachers, but I am upset that the education system is failing these students. Our school is more successful in creating high school dropouts than it is in creating college-bound students. It may appear that a lot of students do not care about their education, but the whole thing is totally psychological. Having not met expectations for so long has made them find the only way they know how to not fail. In their minds, if they don't try, they can't feel bad about failing. Had I known this in September, I would perhaps be finding more success. Not only am I responsible for teaching Algebra and Geometry, but I am responsible for helping rebuild these kids' perceptions of education in general. The thought of this in one student is manageable, but 50% of my students requiring this attention is the very definition of overwhelming.
Even in this one post, you can see me reverting back from vacation mode, so as I think about Monday, I wonder: how do I ration my time, energy, resources, etc. among my students and throughout the calendar? In setting reasonable goals for myself for the remainder of the year, which students should I focus on? The lowest performing? The highest performing? Those on the cusp of failing? Unfortunately one of the ugly truths behind TFA is that it feeds off of statistics, and good ones at that. And since my marks are still far from the TFA goal of 80% student mastery of content standards, I often get the sense that my work at this school will never be enough. And it doesn't help that the math department is very cynical.
I've always been one to subconsciously determine my own success based on what everyone else is doing or has done; years of school and grade point averages I think are responsible for this. It's without a doubt a new experience for me to measure success without comparing to others. If I were to do that now, it feels like failure. In a very self-reflective way I feel like this is one of the main things that I am learning from this job - that the idea of "success" is complex and can be broken down into many parts, instead of being viewed as some intangible goal of perfection. It may sound cheesy, and I may be saying this because a week off has made me forget my awful 7th period class, but I am pretty satisfied knowing that I am doing the best I reasonably can.
Ugh, I rewrote that last paragraph about three times but it still reads like a testimonial about "how this job is changing my life." Sorry about that.
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