Mixed Feelings, All Bad - Brady

Today, the last full day of school for my students and maybe the second or third to last time I will ever set foot in Carroll High School, I experienced a range of emotions - all of them bad. Here's the list.

1) Nerves/Worry

For some reason, drying my hair in the morning is when I get the most stressed out/angry/panicky/fill in other negative emotion here. Something about the normal nerves I feel right when I wake up anyway plus the heat from the blow dryer plus having nothing else to think about causes trouble.

Today, I got really nervous again about this move to grad school. I revisited my old worry that I will never find a job as a professor so I'll probably just be wasting my time. Then I moved on to a new worry - that it will impact my relationship with Kevin to be living in Chicago while he's in Fort Wayne. Both of these are valid concerns to have, I think, and factors I considered when I made my decision to go to Northwestern, but I was unhealthily nervous about it this morning. It definitely started my day off on the wrong foot.

2) Disappointment

This is a little thing, but I did not get the reaction I was hoping for when I passed out these personalized letters I wrote to each of my students. On Friday when I handed them out to the kids who had finals that day, they loved them. I guess that raised my expectations too high, because the reaction I got today was less than stellar. It made me feel like the time I spent writing them was wasted.

3) Frustration and Annoyance

In general, my students were just kind of crazy and punky today. Lots of arguing, lots of talking when they weren't supposed to be talking, lots of attitude.

4) Shame and Stress

Finally, and the worst for me, was something a student said in 7th period. I had him last year in Spanish 1 and now have him in Spanish 2. Last year, he was in this terrible class period. It was a big class, the room was hot, it was the last class of the day, and I had a bunch of troublemakers. I lost control of it somehow early on in the semester and never quite got it back.

Here's how the conversation went. It occurred as I was passing out papers.

Kelsey: Did you write notes for all of your students last year?

Me: No, I thought about it, but I didn't really have time or just decided not to or something. Plus, with some of the classes I had last year, I didn't really feel like trying to think up nice things to say about everybody.

Ryan (kid I had last year): 7th period was TERRIBLE last year.

Me (Trying not to get into it. I know I didn't do a great job and didn't really want to talk about it.): I know! I was so glad when that class was over.

Ryan: I mean, it was TERRIBLE.

Me: I know!

Ryan: Like, it was the worst class I've ever been in.

Me: (Silence. Trying to avoid more of this conversation. This is my last day with this class, and I really don't want to be talking about what a terrible teacher I was last year.)

Stephanie (another girl I had in that class last year): They were so mean to you. (She means the troublemaking kids in that class.) I felt so sorry for you.

Me (a little annoyed - I don't need high school pity!): Don't feel sorry for me. Other than them being annoying it didn't really affect me (This is a lie - it did make me doubt my abilities as a teacher and really stressed me out).

Ryan: I remember that day we had the Marine as a sub. No one said a WORD.

Me (pretending to be curious): Oh really? (Thanks, Ryan, for telling me how much better things went when you had your Marine substitute teacher.)

Ryan: I mean, those guys didn't SPEAK for the whole class.

Me (finally): Okay, we need to move on to ...

At that moment, I just felt like, "High schoolers - good riddance." No regret about leaving, no idealizing what it's like to be a teacher.

But, based on how I felt earlier in the day about grad school, I'm not jazzed about that right now either.

What a blah day. I'll try to be more positive the next time I write.