Ack! I just read some really interesting composition theory (trust me, it is interesting to those of us who've forgotten the meaning of fun) and now I'm having a completely crisis of teaching ability. Am I teaching my student's what they need to know or just what I think they should know? How do I know the difference? How do I offer the best classroom environment possible to enable them to learn? Why do I care so much?

I blame this all on my mother. That darned saintly woman that she is taught special-ed for thirty odd years, and she didn't do it because she couldn't figure out what she wanted to do, or because she liked the breaks. She did it because she cared. And she cared about the kids. When she retired, tired and beaten, she said "I wasn't sick of the kids. It was never the kids." That's a special sort of teacher right there. The sort of teacher we all wish we had and hope our kids have. A teacher that isn't in it for herself, but because she feels like she can do something for a particular educational practice. I think that mindset goes for doctors, lawyers, policemen, firefighters, and paramedics too (and anyone else I left out). So now, here I am a teacher--not always because I have saintly ambitions so much as no direction--and I am scared to death what I'm teaching isn't what I should be teaching. I have good materials to work with, but not the best. I have good supervisors to work with, but because of the sheer volume of graduate students they can't keep a close eye on us all. That means I'm mostly unsupervised. Moreover, their teaching theory is slightly different then mine. I don't know if that means one of us is right or wrong, but it means that I'm flying free. I love to fly free; I live to fly free, but what if my flying free hurts the students? What if I'm not careful enough, learned enough, or pointed enough in my teaching?

You see my fears here. On the one hand freshman composition is not all that important in the long run. No matter how badly I screw up I will never be as bad as others or as good as some, and the students will not be traumatized for life. On the other hand, I want to be a good teacher. Unfortunately, just like parenting, wanting doesn't make it so. I still have to work at being a good teacher. Why did I pick this profession? What sort of silliness prompted me to come back to school?

That's not fair. If I still worked my office job I would be morbidly obese (even by my own standards) incredibly unhappy, and most likely self-destructive. School was the right choice, we all know this. But why can't I accept being a mediocre teacher? That, perhaps, is the better question. And, for any teachers out there, does anyone set out to be a mediocre teacher? Some days we just don't care, but overall, do you think, "eh, whatever"? And theory is great; theory is necessary. I love theory. But you still have to be able to think on your feet. You still have to be able to react to the different classroom dynamics of each class. I think academics are responsible, to some degree, for the classroom stereotyping. Sure, college freshman are A LOT alike, and a lot of their thought processes are similar, but you can't approach each class the same. You don't have all the same "teachable moments", as one of my professors would say.

I don't think I could ever be a nurse or a doctor. Assuming I could get over the body stuff (clean-up sure, sticking anybody with anything, not so much) I don't think I would ever shake the anxiety of messing up. I had one student chose to write about the stereotypes of cops for his first paper, and in arguing against the stereotypes that all cops are bad, he said that all cops were good. He even acknowledged that abuse of power sometimes happens, but it was just because they're people too and have a bad day. In talking over his paper with him I was pointing out why you can't argue a stereotype with a stereotype, and said something along the lines of isn't it those bad and good days that make both stereotypes false? And don't you need to explore the complexity of what you're arguing since when a cop has a bad day somebody goes to jail, or dies? I'm not relating the conversation very well, but I remember thinking, here is this guy who wants to be a cop, and will make a good one I think, but he has no idea why the pressure is so great. It's great because you have to make hard decisions and see horrible things, but it's also great because you don't always get to have a bad day. You don't get to be off you're game.

Teaching is obviously not life and death like that, but I wonder how it is we prepare students for those situations. After all, since I'm teaching them to think through writing, the emphasis being on thinking, I am hoping that these cognitive skills will carry over into their professions. What I teach badly and somebody becomes a bad lawyer, or doctor, or cop? I am, of course, assuming entirely too much responsibility, but it is sort of the dilemma of the teacher. You don't want to (nor should you) just teach punctuation and word choice. But once you try to teach more there is always the possibility of failure.

And since people aren't a mathematical equation how do I account for all their variables to minimize my failure? This is why I shouldn't read theory or philosophy or any thing more complex than a trashy romance novel. Nothing good ever comes of it!

I'm going back to waxing philosophical about love.