Stress!!!
Could mid-terms be any more stressful? The students are nervous and feel frazzled, but the teachers are even more so. I was feeling so isolated and alone, drowning in the amount of work I have to do, when I came upon another miserable soul who has also dedicated her life to teaching. “How can I work diligently all day,” I said, “come home, shower and eat, and then work until I drop of exhaustion, and still not be done with all I have to do?” That feeling, day after day, make one feel like life is futile– an endless cycle of grading and planning that never ends. Yet here was another teacher, an English teacher — who has children– who was struggling through the same thing. We met in the photocopying room, over an hour after our day had ended, and commiserated about all we had to do. One of the saddest aspects of teaching, after seeing the conditions in which some of my students are forced to survive, is not being able to socialize with and learn from my colleagues. We spoke for a minute or two and went our seperate ways. But suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone. The stress-induced tears I had shed the night before, when I was swimming in my lake of pity, lost their weight a little and I didn’t feel like drowning.
Filed by rsmith at January 17th, 2007 under Education, personal
I am the stressed teacher about whom our favorite blogger wrote. And here I am at my desk, still stressed and pitiful, taking a break from reading essays on Transcendentalist literature. So much for Carpe diem!