The Behemoth

Many of you may know that I love roller coasters. I have never met a roller coaster which I didn't love. The bigger, the better is my motto for coasters. Sure, I may be praying (read: cursing like a banshee) on the first big hill, but I eventually come around and love the ride.

But emotional roller coasters are a totally different type of ride, and honestly I want it to stop! I seriously can't take the ups and downs of teacher's college anymore. Last week, I was in a good place emotionally. I was up to date in my readings, and actually I was working ahead on the schedule (a rarity in my line of work!) My lessons (asides from the infamous "cheeseburger" episode of 2010) had gone remarkably well. If you had asked me last week what I thought of teacher's college thusfar, I would have smiled and said "it's not that bad."

Fast forward to this past weekend. In the span of just two days, I went from being ahead of the game, to being overwhelmed and overloaded. The thing with my assignments/lesson plans/readings is that they tend to get intense all at the same time. So on Sunday, I was desperately trying to plan 3 lessons, read 200 pages of crap and work on 4 reflective journals (BLAH!). And I snapped! Since my SWV supply was shockingly low, my dear (but lonely) husband was very close to putting me in the car and taking a short drive down to visit the nice doctors at the mental hospital.

Instead he reminded me that I can't stop time, nor can I change the situation, so why stress over it at 2:00 in the morning. He wisely left me alone to have a good old fashion ugly cry, then calmly (but carefully) offered his advice. Now, let's get one thing clear. In my marriage, I'm always right, so it came as a great surprise that he offered sound advice. Yes, I'm admitting that C was right! But don't tell him I said that cause it might go to his head!

Tonight, as I'm writing this blog at 1:20 am, I'm back to being in a reasonably stable state of mind. Sure I have tons of stuff to do, and I'm once again giving sleep for assignments, but my tear ducts need a break.

Oddly enough, this roller coaster of emotions is also a daily event. This morning, I lead 2 small groups of students (remember they're only 8 years old) through my final input lesson on paragraph structure. Sounds easy right? WRONG! I've been working with the kids for 2 weeks now, and they don't seem to get it. Indent, topic sentence, 3 supporting sentences, closing sentence. Boom - done! Since they weren't able to transfer their knowledge to their writing, I felt that I had no one to blame but myself. I had failed them as a teacher, they won't pass grade 3, they won't get into an ivy-league school and they'll live their lives begging for spare change. Ok, this might be a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. Because of my delicate emotion state to begin with, I questioned my intensions as an educator. It was a serious drop of the Behemoth ride of teaching.

Then after lunch, I had to lead the students through an art lesson about lines. We went on a "line hunt" in the classroom, used overheads to show famous line paintings and had the kids paint their version of Van Gogh's "Starry night." The kids loved it! I was in control, and they were clearly grasping the concept. I was back on the teaching high!

At the end of the day, my MT and I discussed my aprehension about teaching. They said that they have similar feelings, even after teaching for 10 years. Sounds comforting, but all I could think of was...."you mean it doesn't stop!" If I have any hope of getting to the end of this "ride", I need to invest in a lot of tissues and maybe even SWV shares - might as well make some money while I'm losing my mind!!!

Good night :)

P.S. I'm too darn tired to hit the spell check button, so just ignore any grammar mistakes. If you're so inclined, print this blog, mark it with a red pen and give it to me the next time we meet. But be prepared to have to take me on a "short drive!"