Serenity

I’m a little short on subject matter at the moment, unfortunately, as it pertains to school. Now that I don’t spend too much time working on and stressing out about Ole Miss assignments, my life is extremely well balanced. Maybe it’s just the end of the year or maybe I’m getting comfortable sitting behind the teacher’s desk, but I have the time and energy now to work eleven hour days preparing material and grading, go on a diet, work out regularly, read, watch all sorts of indie films, sleep, and remain cheerful and enthusiastic most of the day. I’m definitely looking forward to summer break, a new school year, and preparing for graduate school, but during the last month or so, I’ve been discovering the merits of a proactive if settled life. I could do this for a living, methinks, but Ithaca is many an adventure away as yet.
There is one short story, however, that compels some attention. Besides the Princeton Review class for which I’m seeking funds to teach free of charge at Murrah next year, I have a bright, dedicated student who wishes to take an AP Latin exam at the end of next year before she graduates. This wouldn’t be so shocking, of course, except that this gives me a year between now and then to teach her two more years of Latin in addition to preparing for the AP exam. (I only teach Latin I this year.) Most AP Latin students read Virgil, but fortunately for me (since I have not translated much Virgil in my day) there’s also a Catullus-based AP exam. I’m well-versed in Catullus, so maybe it will all work out and I can get this girl a solid 4 on the exam.
I’m rarely a content soul – there’s always something somewhere that I haven’t done or didn’t do well enough, whether it’s an Ole Miss assignment, grading papers, doing dishes, or keeping up with my reading habit, but I’m ecstatic that I have the go-ahead to teach this particular student above and beyond everyone else at a level she deserves and that I’m developing the ambition and skills necessary to put in the many extra hours of work off the clock that this will take. More specifically, I’m ecstatic that she asked me specifically to do this; while I may not be the best teacher, I don’t think she would have asked if she didn’t recognize in some way how frustrated I’ve been by how little I was able to actually teach this year and how much more I could have done with more willing students. I’ll have the chance to really look ahead and solidify my own deficient Latin skills, research some difficult text like a real college student, and instill some meaningful wisdom in a bright young mind, which is exactly why I’m here teaching in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, though – I’ve had many, many success stories and cheesy teacher rewards, like the underachieving boy who sees me as a father figure and always gets his shit done even though he struggles desperately and won’t work for anyone else or the departing senior who told me she’ll taking Latin in college because after all these months with me she finally had a Moment in English class when she aced a pop vocabulary quiz because she finally matched up some Latin roots to the English words she didn’t study. I keep thinking I should feel guilty for not focusing enough on my struggling students, but I can only beg, plead, and get mean with them to do their homework or perform an involving cultural lesson so many times. Maybe I should still feel guilty and blame myself for failing them since, in all honesty, I do. But the point around which I’ve been skirting for a nice long paragraph is that I feel more proud, tremendously proud, about transforming an already formidable student into the best possible student than I do about any other ‘success’ I’ve had this year.
Perhaps this isn’t quite the Teacher Corps ideal, but above average students deserve attention as well. Or perhaps more precisely and justly, I’ve decided in my classroom at least that no matter the intelligence level and background, a student receives a proportional amount of time and energy from me that I see goes into me. If a student never does his homework, then he doesn’t deserve the benefit of reviewing his answers and mistakes with me, but if I girl wants to cover three years of Latin in the space of one year, she can have as much of my devotion as she needs.
Okay, so maybe once again I had more subject matter than I thought I did – it sure took a lot of rambling, but eventually I came to a coherent thesis. I wish blogs weren’t so informal in nature. Anyway, Ben (and Robbie and Molina and anyone else), I’d love to hear what you think about this – how do you all deal with students from whom you just get nothing despite how much you try, and how does that effect the overall classroom dynamic? I feel like I’ve ‘given up’ on some of my students, but at the same time, not pulling my hair out about those kids has allowed me to really reach through to those who show some effort much more than before.