Goals

This post was going to be about moving and settling into Beijing and how I don't feel exhausted all the time anymore and this one time when I walked into a noodle shop and asked for noodles and they took one look at me and gave me spaghetti with tomato sauce.  (Don't worry, that post is coming.  I've already started writing it.)

What changed, you ask?  Well, I'm listening to Janelle Monáe's new album, which is amazing, by the way, and makes me feel kind of bold and spiky (and if you haven't listened to Dance Apocalyptic while dancing around your place of residence like a crazy person, DO IT NOW).  And it's October break here in Beijing, so I've had a lot more time than usual to think about life, the universe, and everything.

But mostly it's that I met my grading goal for the afternoon.

It's the second time that's happened since I started teaching over five years ago.  I set out to grade twenty freshmen papers, and I graded twenty freshmen papers.

The other time I've met my goal?  Two weeks ago. 

I'd like to say that it's because I've suddenly become a better teacher, that I've finally learned how to manage my time, or that with five years of teaching under my belt I'm finally a "good teacher."  But that would be a lie.

The simple fact is that this year, I have exactly 77 students.  My largest class is 17; my smallest is 12.  I can give concrete and timely feedback because I can actually sit down and get through an entire section's worth of work in about three hours.

This brings other things into sharp relief as well.  My classes are small enough that even as early as one month into the school year, I know exactly which students I need to be worried about.  I've already emailed their parents.  I've been able to give extensive feedback on formative assessments that will help my students on their summative assessments. 

There's more.  My new school has the resources to give each of my students a notebook.  If I need colored pencils for my classroom, I go to the resource room and sign them out.  We have a dedicated IT department for when students have problems with laptops or printing.  We have a full-time librarian and at least three library techs.

All I need to worry about is teaching.

To imply that I'm able to meet my grading goal for the day because I'm suddenly a better teacher than I used to be is to insult all the amazing teachers that I worked with in the public schools.  It's not their fault that a class size of 33 is deemed acceptable just because there are other classes that are overloaded at 39.  (It's not the administrators' fault, either; in most cases, they're as hamstrung by politics and a lack of resources as teachers are.)  My friends in public schools are creative, hard-working, and caring miracle-workers, and I am more than ever in awe of them.  But to work in the public schools these days -- or at least some public schools, I don't want to over-generalize -- is to be tired all the time.  You never feel like you're doing enough, but you're doing literally all that you can do short of having a nervous breakdown.  (And sometimes you just go ahead and have the nervous breakdown anyway.)  You don't just feel the weight of all the things you have to do; you feel the guilt of all the things you can't do.  The parents you don't have time to call.  The positive notes home you don't have time to write.  The perfect lesson you don't have time to plan.

The feedback you don't have time to give. 

You give the students what you can.  You love them with all your heart, even when you also want to beat them to death.  Every time you spend a weekend afternoon reading, or go out to dinner on a weekday night, or go to the gym instead of going home to grade, you feel a little twinge of guilt.  You do it anyway, because you know that if you don't, you'll burn out, and that's not useful for anyone.

And how terrible is that?  To know that you can never be the best teacher you can be -- and if you were, you'd only be able to do it for a year, max?  To know that to give your kids the best education they could possibly have is to destroy your own life?

I'm not speaking for everyone.  I couldn't possibly.  There are teachers in the public schools who seem to do it all and make it look easy.  If I could I would hold them hostage and bribe them with chocolate espresso cheesecake until they gave me all their secrets (maybe they all have Time-Turners?), but that is probably illegal and might not even work, anyway.  Probably they would roll their eyes at me gently and just tell me to stop whining and do my job.

Don't get me wrong, here; I love teaching, and I love public schools.  Though I'm teaching in a private school now, public education has not seen the last of me, not by a long shot.  I believe that even with its inadequacies and frustrations, public education is 100% worth it, because of the amazing teachers AND because of the amazing kids.  But being out of the pressure-cooker of a public school has shown me that despite what the news and Michelle Rhee and Scott Walker seem to be projecting, my self-perceived failures as a teacher are not completely my fault. 

Public school teachers know this intellectually, of course.  We know that there are a myriad of systemic factors contributing to the problems in public education, from class sizes to poverty on a broad scale to time to poverty on a family-sized scale.  We get it.

But when we have a high failure rate, we feel that in our gut.  We cry.  We think of the kids that we weren't able to reach and we think of the kids that we weren't able to help fly as high as they could have.  We're in awe of students who deal with circumstances we've never had to experience in our lives and whether they beat those circumstances or not, we honor their fight.  We notice the kids who are slipping silently through the cracks and we wish so much that we could reach out and catch them in our palms, but instead our hands are full with our other 149 students (at least), all of whom are clamoring for -- and deserve - our fullest attention.

Go ahead.  Tell us not to feel like failures.

I know that everyone is worried about public education (thanks, guys! love the support), and everyone wants to help.  Here is my one and only piece of advice, and it's not like I'm the only one who's ever said it:

Listen to the public school teachers.  Please.  Please?  Please listen?   Not the people who were in the classroom for a year or so more than a decade ago.  Listen to the people who are in the classroom now.  For goodness' sake, listen to us.  We're on your side.  We want our students to be successful, too, and we know what they need to make that happen.  (Probably.  We fight about it sometimes, but we're only human.)

Because seriously, I loved being a public school teacher.  I don't think there is a single other profession in the world that I would love as much.  The kids are both phenomenal and underestimated by the world at large.  Even as I was exhausted, I loved going to work.  Even as I felt demoralized, the sheer, beautiful ridiculousness of the job stunned me into happiness.  And someday, I want to do it again.

But I also want to be able to keep meeting my grading goals.  My students deserve it.