Thoughts on Returning to Class

As I prepare to return to the classroom, weeks after school has started, I always feel some trepidation. I know I am not the ideal teacher. I am not Mr. Chips or LouAnne Johnson—heck I am not even as grumpily and grudgingly good as Mr. Holland. I am just me. I come to work and try my best. I try to inspire my students to do their best. And I always end a semester feeling that I have not fulfilled my potential and often have not helped my students to fulfill their potentials, either. Granted, by the end of the semester I am exhausted and more likely to look at everything negatively. I must do better than I think as my students are often likely to stop me in the halls or the stores to say hi. The smiles and cheerful attitudes reassure me that I haven’t scarred them for life.

Today I was reading a post in blogessor and found that this appealed to me and gave me some insight and hope for the year:

Today, though, I came across an article called "The One Who Is Not Busy." In it, Zen Buddhist Norman Fischer talks about being "prisoners of the list" as we realize (again) that there aren't enough hours in the day to do all that we need or want to do. He says,

"But the point is not how many things we have done or will do in a given amount of time; the point is how we do what we do."

As I read that this morning, I substituted "taught/teach" for "done/do," as in:

"But the point is not how many things we have taught or will teach in a given amount of time; the point is how we teach what we teach."

"Learned/learn" works here. "Wrote/write" and "read/read" do, too.

As I move back into Eddy Hall this year, I know I'll be clobbered again by the temptation to become the prisoner of my lists. I know I'll want to be counting tomatoes rather than how many more projects are left in my stack of grading. I'm writing this entry to remind myself that I can't teach it all, no matter how ambitious my syllabi. In fact, maybe being less ambitious would let all of us learn more in the end.

Book Review: The Garden at Night

The Garden at Night: Burnout & Breakdown in the Teaching Life by Mary Rose O’Reilley

This book takes a look at the spiritual side of burnout and breakdown. As her experience is as a college teacher, this is where O’Reilley focuses her essays, but there are applicable lessons for teachers of all levels.

One of the strongest lessons is that everyone undergoes a “dark night of the soul.” It is not unusual, nor should it be unanticipated. Not that these facts make it any easier to endure, as she herself acknowledges. She does advise that we look for the lesson in these situations, to see what we can learn from them. And that, sometimes, that lesson is that it is time to find a different profession.

O’Reilley also emphasizes the need for teachers to take time to meditate or pray daily. She discusses the spiritual traditions of Christianity and Zen Buddhism. These are not mutually exclusive. Both ask that practitioners take that time out of their lives to focus on something besides the problems constantly besieging them. The importance of taking time for one’s self is an important part, perhaps the most important part, of avoiding a burnout—or at least putting it off.

This is an extremely interesting book that takes a look at burnout from a different perspective than others I have read. The practical applications are from a different direction. The philosophical stance is accessible and attainable. This is one I will need to reread to gain the full impact of, but it has already broadened my thinking on the topic of burnout.