I'm Not Superwoman and 3 Other Things I Learned This Week

So I may or may not have had a slight break down last week.

It was one of those weeks where I was not only emotionally compromised due to the anniversary of the death of a coworker and friend, but my grades were due and a bunch of stuff for grad school was due as well.

The only shining beacon is that spring break started last Friday.

::cue sounds of angels singing::

I am the type of person that decompresses by being alone. Unfortunately, Saturday and Sunday were spent with family and friends from out of town so it was not until Monday that I actually got to decompress.

In the past two days I have drank some wine, slept A LOT, drank a little more wine, read for pleasure, drank just one more glass of wine, and finally was able to gain perspective on the entire ordeal.

In total, I learned five things. I'm going to put them in a list because I love lists.*

What Daily(ish) Teacher Has Learned Since Last Thursday

1. I am not superwoman.....

I wish I could stay on top of my grading AND my grad work while I am coaching softball (with no assistant coach ::cue crazy smile::) all while still having a social life. Needless to say something had to give and sadly, the thing that gave was my sanity.

I can't do it all.

I can't do it all.

I can't do it all.

I say it over and over again because I can actually say it now. Growing up, my mother and I would get into the biggest fights ever because I would refuse to ask for help because I didn't want to seem broken or weak.** I have slowly gotten better over the years but it took until this moment to fully realize that I really can't do everything.

By far, one of toughest things to learn is your own failings.

2. ....but I am superwoman to my students

I have talked before about how my students value me beyond what I'm teaching them in the classroom and although that is nice, it isn't what made me think of that this time.

On Thursday, we had a half day and I happened to have all of my sophomore classes that day. The day before, their research project that they have all been stressing over was due.

I could have given them some bonus assignment on Shakespeare (our next unit) or actually tried to teach. Instead, I gave them coloring pages.

Yes, I gave a bunch of 15 and 16 year old students coloring pages.

They were beyond excited.

As they walked out, a lot of them said to me "Thank you. I really needed this" with a look of gratefulness on their face.

Although I am not superwoman, I just saved my students from having a break down by giving them 30 minutes of freedom from high school

I even got in on the stress relieving drawing craze

3. Laughing is vital to survival

If it wasn't for laughing, last week would have been worse off. And, it isn't just about yourself laughing, it is about making others laugh as well.

For example, I am an avid Doctor Who fan and so is one of my fellow English teachers. When the Weeping Angels came up on my daily calendar of Doctor Who villains, I freaked but knew I had to play a practical joke on my coworker since she was also dealing with stressed out sophomores. So this is what I put in her grade book when she wasn't in her classroom

If you have no idea why this is freaky, see the video below***. Regardless, for any Doctor Who fan, this is something that is going to make you jump and freak out as it did to my coworker in the middle of her class.

I know her sense of humor so I had no fear she would laugh. It was a good and much needed laugh for her which also helps me because I know for a moment that I brought a smile to someone's face.

4. My students will constantly surprise me

I felt like giving up. I was realizing why nearly half of teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years.

It is stressful. It is time consuming. It is emotionally draining because of how much you care.

You care and you care and you care yet you feel like this article from The Onion (that has NSFW language).

Recently, I gave them an assignment to look at a story from a different perspective and create a podcast about it. The goal was to put them in the shoes of someone else and to see the story through their eyes. I was expecting kids to do this last second and not put a lot of thought into it and just tell the same story I had heard over, and over again.

Although I got that, I also got some really really really awesome ones that made me so happy. The stories they were able to retell were AMAZING. They really grasped the concept of a podcast and two boys, who are on the quiet side, were able to actually tell a story in an amazing way. I put together a video of their podcasts so you can enjoy my student's work as much as I do.

Seriously, It is wonderful and I was pleasantly surprised. It is times like this that I remember why I do what I do.


I learned that I love teaching and even though I am stressed, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

*if you think that is strange you have obviously never hung around teachers who, by nature, break EVERYTHING down into lists for students.

**The short version: I knew I was smart but hated that I just couldn't remember to do or complete things which I felt made me appear dumb so I refused to ask for help since I wanted to prove that I could do it. Curses of ADD

***Yeah, I'm just giving you a link to the video and not embedding it because they freak me out too much. Go here to get the short version as to what they are.

Magical Formula

Dear stressed out self of the future:

I totally know how you are feeling right now. I was grading until 3am last night and woke up again at 5am to finish said grades for my 7:40am deadline. I'm so far behind on grad school that I'm afraid I may not graduate, and I have no idea how I'm teaching the next unit.

Yes, spring break officially started an hour ago but I don't get to take advantage of that. I have a softball game that is 45 min away and coming back, with the oh so lovely traffic, will cause my spring break to start around 7pm tonight.

Did I mention I also have only 9 players for today's game?

You may be wondering why I'm writing this since all it seems like is a pity party.


That is exactly why I'm writing it.


Seriously future self, you're so stressed that you just want to curl up and cry because of the exhaustion and never ending load of work. You feel like you never have time for yourself because when you do take a night off from grading/planning/prepping to cope with the one year anniversary of a friend's death, you actually end up feeling worse because you ended up not being prepared for work the next day and end up in a frazzle.

People are going to tell you that you assign too much work or that you can't let the little things get to you or that it isn't the end of the world.

Future self, screw them.


Every assignment you give to your students is designed as part of a larger purpose. Those assignments should be graded because if you don't grade, your underclassmen will fail since their paper writing isn't developed enough yet. You also can't "go easy" on them when it comes to paper writing because they won't become better writers that way.

You know it isn't the end of the world and you know that you should let the little things go. However, you also know you have ADHD which makes these things nearly impossible to do. You struggle to remain focused which leads to disorganization which then leads to guilt and anxiety because your failings are hurting your students. You then get frustrated when no one believes you because "ADHD is a kid thing" and "everyone now has ADHD." You feel alone and isolated because no one can seem to comprehend that you actually want to let the little things go but doing so makes you think that you have completely failed.

Future self, I wish that I could tell you I have it all figured out. That I know how to get out of the hole you're in and not make your job consume your life. I wish I knew how to be an effective teacher without having to give up so much of my time that I don't feel like I can ever relax again.

I honestly don't know what to do or say to you.

So why do I write this future self?


I write it because I want you to know that you're not alone. I'm where you are now. I know how you feel and although I'm talking to myself, it is always nice to know someone else feels the same way you do.


Now future self, I must go and see if I can find this magical formula to combat this overwhelming stress.

Hopefully, I can give you an answer soon.


Sincerely,

Your past self

Finding Meaning in the Crazy

My life is crazy.

No, really.

I teach 9th and 10th graders full time. I have 6 classes for a total of 121 students. Not only that, but I teach English which means my grading takes at LEAST twice as long to complete than the average math or science teacher.

I am also enrolled in grad school full time. Yes, full time. 9 credits. Luckily it is my last semester.

I also am the head JV softball coach. "That isn't so bad. You have assistants to help you out." Yeah...not so much this year. The assistant varsity coach will be on maturity leave during the season so the head varsity coach took my assistant coach thus leaving me with no full time assistant this year. It is also very difficult to find a replacement because there are not that many people who can get off work at 3pm every single day.

So yes, my life is completely crazy. My boyfriend and I get into stupid fights because "I don't make time for him" but he "doesn't want me to give up what I love"

Which means I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I've learned the only way to combat this feeling of complete craziness is to remember why you got into the crazy in the first place. If you can't remember why, then you should just cut it out of your life.

Softball
I have been involved with softball since I was 5. I played it until I was 18. My freshmen year of college, I missed it so much that I found a local team to help coach. I was an assistant varsity coach for three years. After college, I came back home. I decided not to coach my first year teaching because I figured that would be too crazy even for me. I realized I missed it way to much.

Last year, the JV coach left and they needed someone. I stepped up to the plate* and decided to coach knowing full well I would have to balance grad school as well as teaching.

It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The girls were a blast to work with and that intense happy/satisfied feeling softball brought me as a player came back as a coach. Not coaching would leave me with a hole that can only be filled by softball.

Grad School
Obviously, I can't just "quit" grad school. Even though I can't get rid of it, I have to remind myself why I do it.

I do it because I want to learn more about profession. I want to become a better teacher. I want to impact my students in new ways. I don't want to become the boring, old, repetitive teacher; I want to constantly be current and engaging.

Even though it drives me crazy every once and a while, grad school is important to everything I do.

Teaching
The burnout rate for teachers is less than 5 years.

I'm in year 4 and I can completely relate to that statistic.

I am constantly tired because I stay at school for over 12 hours. I work on the weekends and sometimes freak out when I don't. I've gotten better at making sure I set aside time for myself but it is difficult when I feel like I don't have enough hours in a day to do my job well.

Every time I think I reach my breaking point, something happens to remind me why I teach. This time it was an argument.

My sophomores are reading Things Fall Apart. Like most assigned reading for school, my students were not excited to read the novel. However, due to my hard work in grad school, I was able to devise a unit that would at least force the students to read and not rely upon SparkNotes.

On Friday, they were assigned various aspects of the Ibo culture to examine and draw conclusions about based upon what is presented in the novel. Two of those topics were "manhood" and "womanhood." My students began to debate, totally unprompted by me, about Okonkwo and if he really was "manly" or not. They were using examples from the text and finally agreed that it depended upon the definition of "manly" that was used.

They were not only reading but having an emotional response to the reading. They were exploring the human concept of "strength" and "weakness" on their own. They were doing everything I had hoped they would do and more.

It seems small and it seems insignificant but, it the meaning in my crazy. It is the reason I do what I do and it is the reason that, although I'm exhausted, I'm no where near burned out.

Laughing Instead of Going Crazy

Curiosity of Stephen Patis andPeals Before Swine

It has been a very looooong day at school and my last period planning took forever to get here.

Why was it so long you ask?

Besides the fact that my students seemed to have ingested pounds of sugar, I was grading essays during my spare minutes. The above comic pretty much sums up how I feel after grading some of these essays. Nearly every essay I want to write various comments like Cameron Diaz does in Bad Teacher. If you have never seen that movie, I have put the video of her grading short answers below (language NSFW since she drops the f-bomb once). It pretty much sums up how every teacher feels while grading. The first time I saw that scene I couldn't stop laughing for a good 5 minutes so I missed the next scene and had to rewind.

Basically, the point of this post is to give you some laughs since you're most likely on the verge of losing it and going crazy. Hopefully they help.

(Since I am an English teacher, I will say that I have not created any of these images/videos. If I know the author I will give them credit but some were just circulated on the internet so much that I'm not sure who the original author is)

Over Worked, Over Tired, and Under Paid

I have to write three exams, grade 60 essays, grade various homework assignments, and get interim grades done.

This is not due to me slacking off which makes it worse.

I decided to do the math and over the last two weeks, I've spent over 50 hours outside of school doing work related things.

What sucks is that no teacher is ever paid for this extra time spent. I could go on and on about how this isn't fair, we should be paid for, etc. But I'm not going to.

The thing that sucks almost as much as not getting paid is how tired I always am during the school year. I wake up at 5am every day and work until at least 4pm if not later. Some days I'm not home until 8pm.

This just makes me.....tired.

Trying to make this positive is near impossible.

I really don't have any encouraging words for how to spin this one into a positive light. I just know that this permanent state of exhaustion is not unique to me and I know how lonely you feel when you're in this state. So I wanted to tell the teacher that feels overly exhausted and feels like no one understands why they are so tired; you are not alone.