I finished today’s other post on my phone last night, and it seems those concluding paragraphs have been lost in the ether.
This is not the first time the WordPress app has failed me. I cannot seem to publish a post on that thing successfully. If I’m trying to schedule it to go up at a later time? Forget about it.
I have a hard time when my words are lost. It frustrates me more than it should. {I’m going to have a hard time not blaming my mood on others or my circumstances today!}
The reality is, it’s probably better that the finalized post never saw the light of day. It was very woe-is-me: I am missing that fundamental piece that allows a person to be a good classroom manager; you can never teach well without that skill; it will really suck to be stuck teaching for 30 years and never become a genuinely good educator.
Because my god I’ve spent a lot of time (and money!) trying to improve my skills in this area and I haven’t seen any real improvement. And the worst part is, I want so badly to get better at this, because I recognize how vitally important it is to ensure a class treats each other with respect. I feel like such a fucking failure when I “learn” new skills and can’t seem to utilize them effectively.
And what happens next? Do I keep trying, and failing, to be a better classroom manager? Do I accept defeat and bolster my other skills in an attempt to mask my failings in that one pertinent area? What does either one do to my sense of self-worth? I have 20+ years of teaching ahead of me, I don’t know how to navigate 20 years of feeling, in some ways, like a failure.
The situation that triggered all this really sucks. I’m having a hard time balancing person responsibility and self-compassion.
And this post isn’t nearly as good as the one the WordPress app ate.
You have strengths and weaknesses. Each group of students that enters your classroom has individual and group strengths and weaknesses. NO ONE is ever perfect for all.
That is not a personal failing on your part. Any teacher who says they have never experienced a group of children where they were not able to be the perfect and right and wonderful classroom manager for ~ Well, they haven’t had much diversity in their classrooms and students.
Beating yourself up for this does no good and setting an unrealistic goal doesn’t help either. Ask yourself if you so mismanaged a perfectly behaved, cooperative, eager learning, non-hormonal, group of stress-free junior high school students that YOU caused the chaos. I doubt this is true.
Agree with above re: strengths and weaknesses. Can’t all of us write a similar post about a CRITICAL aspect of our jobs/careers that we don’t feel we are any good at (I know I could, but I don’t want to lower my confidence when I need it most, so I’m going to focus on the positives). I’m sorry you had a shitty day teaching and lost your post to boot. I’m so impressed you are posting so regularly during such a busy time!
Is the measure you’re using to determine if you are successful accurate (i.e. is it really representative of success)? Can you measure progress toward whatever that bar is? Is the goal realistic? I got really high classroom management grades (pre-teaching obviously and in student teaching) but I never felt successful at it, which made me reevaluate where I had set the bar for myself. In this career I make sure I have SMART goals and that I measure my progress somehow.
Maybe it’s who you’re teaching. Dear the God I don’t believe in…..middle schoolers…*shudder*