I was back this week after being out last week with the flu. I mistakenly came in one day thinking I was better…and I wasn’t. We have a week off next week. Instead of one day for President’s day we get a week. This creates an interesting span of time between Winter Break and next week, which we call Mid-Winter break. With conferences, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and me taking a week off because of my paternity week, it was well, a very weird chunk of time. When we get back from this upcoming break, it’s our push to prepare for the concerts after Spring Break. We need to be close to ready to go after Spring Break as performances come up quickly. There's a lot to do.
I’ve had some nice moments with my students this year, and like the other years I’ve have time away for paternity leave, things feel a little disconnected. Moving through the stream of a year with a group of students is a great bonding experience. You experience the ups and down through the rhythm of the year, and it’s quite an experience. When you are away from a chunk of time, the students continue to move through the year without you, and you can’t help but feel the loss of the pieces that you weren’t there for.
This is one of those things that I knew was going to happen, and that I tried to mentally prepare for, but at the same time, it is still difficult. It feels like being a visitor in your own classroom, and trying to hold onto something but not quite being able to get a good grasp of what you are trying to hold.
Another part of this is also all the other stuff I have going on in my life. I have a little one at home and even though he’s my third baby. It is still a lot of time, energy, and emotional work to be partner in taking care of him with my wife. It’s easy to forget that the tank isn’t endless, and that you can’t just simply expect that you always got something left. This is where patience, patience for yourself is essential.
Teaching is a practice where confidence sometimes wains and self-doubt is a feature. It’s a professional that is always changing, an activity that you can never fully prepare for, and a job that requires a oneself to work to genuinely be a better person. Students can spot a phony, so if you are trying to help your students be more kind, and you aren’t doing that work yourself to be kind as well, you words and actions will be ineffective.
The cycle between confidence and self-doubt is a feature of teaching. The more challenging feelings come and go, and like other feelings they aren’t always based in facts. Honestly, I have been feeling more self-doubt than confidence in the past week, but that’s okay. If we can’t question our own actions, and think about how we can better our work than we aren’t growing, and if this happens than we aren’t really teaching anymore.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the school year. There’s a lot to do, and also a lot to enjoy. I may have missed a lot but I’m still in it, and I’m excited to keep on the work.
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