Thursday, March 09, 2006

is this worth it?

Today, after a triple period followed by extended time, I placed my head on my desk ... and cried. Not sobs, just some tears that seemed to well up. A first for me.

The meetings with the parents, the effort expended in attempting to educate students that the school would prefer to ignore, the lack of professional and interpersonal support, the dearth of resources and the hours searching for (and modifying) materials - it all takes its toll eventually.

And today it did.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Believe it or not it is worth it. To paraphrase those T-fellows ads, who ever cried over a spreadsheet?

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Tears are healing, let them flow. Then wipe your eyes and get back to the kids. They need you more than you can possibly imagine, or even appreciate.

NYC Educator said...

I'm very sorry to hear you're feeling like that. It's demeaning what the city is doing to us, with the blessings of our impotent union.

The best thing about this job is the kids, who usually manage to make me smile no matter what else is going on.