Practice What You Preach

I want to be a teacher. And not only do I want to be a teacher, I want to be the type of teacher that students enjoy my class, really learn something, and look forward to at least some of the projects and assignments. So I'm taking a lot of classes, doing a lot of reflection, and getting as much experience with kids as I can. However, I wonder why I am so excited to do this when clearly it is not required to be a "good" teacher to be a teacher.

I'm most frustrated because some of the professors I have at the moment cannot seem to take the time to notice and care about their students. Yes, I understand that this is college, but at the same time I find the fact that some professors cannot give one single word of encouragement or praise completely discouraging. College is challenging, and it is stressful, but I've been doing it for three years and trying my hardest. Right now I have classes that require a large amount of work and dedication, and I've been doing the best I can to keep up with them, spending the majority of my weekends on homework in preparation for the week. But no matter what I turn in anymore the comments I seem to receive are, "it could be better." Now, I am all about constructive criticism. In some classes I really desperately need to know what I can do better in order to be a better teacher and writer, but when I've spent about six weeks now working diligently and doing the best I can while not getting a single acknowledgement for doing anything right is a little more than I can handle. I'm beginning to dread getting papers and assignments back because I already know that the comments on them will do nothing more than take down my self-esteem and make me feel worse about myself. Because I already know that I am doing the best i can with the time I have in addition to my two jobs and volunteer activities.

So, I've been thinking about this, and trying to see how I can take these degrading experiences and grow from them, and I hope that I've found how these tear-filled experiences can be made worthwhile. Like I said in the first paragraph, I want to be a teacher. But I don't want to be the teacher that makes students cry because nothing they do is ever good enough. I want to encourage, because when I'm in an environment that's encouraging me is when I push myself the absolute hardest and do work I didn't think I was capable of. So I'm going to take these experiences, journal think and reflect on them, and I'm going to use them as the fuel to make me the best teacher I can be for my future students sake.

I want to take these moments, these times when I'm nearly ready to give up because I'm being told that I'm not good enough, and manipulate them into something valuable. Now I just need to hope for the strength to do it =)