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Is It Worth It? Let Me Work It. 

12/11/2012

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I've been wondering this a lot lately-- given the exponential increase in work necessary to do flipclass (or any teaching, really) well, are the gains I see in my classroom really worth it?

Given the amount of blowback directed towards flipclass teachers lately, much of it unwarranted, I wonder, really, is it worth it?

Given the long workdays (I probably spend 85 percent of my waking hours thinking about school or actively teaching it), I wonder, while stealing a moment to cook dinner or play a bad cover of "Fake Plastic Trees" on my guitar... is it worth it?

I go to bed thinking about schoolwork. I wake up thinking about it. I fight with people on Twitter about it and open myself up to criticism--local and national--because of how I want to run class, and how I try to run it everyday.  (And by "run it," I mean "let students have control of it as much as possible.")

Sometimes, as I look in the mirror at the multiplying gray hairs in my beard, and as I touch the spot on the crown of my head where hair used to be, which now looks increasingly like I have taken a friar's monastic vow, I wonder. 

And that's where it stops. 

In years previous, faced with classes of students with personal, home-based, and academic difficulties, I would have largely checked out. I am not proud of this. 

In years previous, I didn't have a group of people watching my back and pushing me on to greater things. 

In years previous, I didn't have people filling in the gaps of my skill--teaching me how to use structure, how to scaffold lessons up so kids could actually attain heights they never thought they could reach. 

In those years, I wouldn't have gotten to be there as what amounts to my academic dream slowly, then suddenly, appeared on a labyrinthine Google Doc right before my eyes. 

There were no Cheesebuckets then, not that I knew of, nor would I have considered that I would count among my primary inspirations a Biology teacher in British Columbia and a Chem teacher in South Bend. 

And I definitely wouldn't be able to say that the same classes, the difficult ones, would have had their fourth consecutive good day today. I would have never gotten to that tipping point. 

The answer, then, CO-llaborators, is yes. 

Yes it is worth it. It's worth it because of your friendship, your support, your passion, and your skill. It's worth it because we're better together--as teachers and as people--than we could be apart. It's worth it because I get to see the sunlight slowly start to grace the cheeks of students in classes that were once deeply buried underground, through no fault of their own. 

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Violent Perfectionism

12/4/2012

2 Comments

 
I kind of give off a slacker vibe to most people. I don't wear ties, usually, and I don't tuck my shirt in if I can help it. My classroom tendency is towards conversation and singing "Kum Bah Yah," and not so much a sense of urgency.

So when people--the ones who actually get close--find out that I'm a perfectionist, it tends to shock them. 

But this afternoon, I realized that I may be tipping over the line into a violent perfectionism, one that may be harming my classroom practice.

While I was talking to Cheryl, as I was bemoaning some group of students not grasping something I wanted them to grasp, she stopped me and asked a very pertinent question:

Dude, what would "good enough" look like? 

My answer shocked even myself. I said (I'm paraphrasing): 

I want this class to be transformational for all students. I want to be That Teacher, the one who breaks the cycle of apathy for those kids, the one who incites students to love learning passionately. 

Oh. 

I did not know that about myself.

I didn't know (or at least hadn't acknowledged) that I had set an impossible standard for myself and for them. And that's what I mean by Violent Perfectionism-- the tension and psychological explosions that issue forth (for teachers and students alike) when the standards set are not attainable, but self-flagellation still occurs for not meeting them. 

I know I can't even reach all students with every lesson all the time. 

And if I can't do that, I obviously can't transform them. Really, it's not my responsibility to transform, not in all situations with all students. Those are rare and beautiful moments, though I've probably had my share of them already.

Now, I don't know if this is an Every Teacher thing, or what. Does anyone have this particular brand of classroom difficulty? And does anyone have a particular solution? I'd love to hear it. 



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    I'm Andrew. I write about learning. I like to learn. 

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