Tired

Radio silence. I'm swamped.

The short of it is that I've been doing a long term leave replacement, ELA Special Ed. I'm not sure why, but with all of the other placements I've covered over this past year, none have so fully wiped me out each and every day. I also feel like I can be doing so, so much better with these classes, but I'm not sure what's in my way. Maybe it's just the very different nature of these classes that I'm not used to. It is excellent experience, I just hope I am doing my students justice and giving them what they need.

On another note, I'm graduating in two weeks! I'm sort of happy, sort of not-caring. I'm trying to convince myself that this truly is an accomplishment. For some reason it doesn't really seem like one. Maybe because I feel so worn out right now. I feel like I've lost sight of what I originally set out to do (lofty things - change the world, integrate technology into every-day teaching, make kids' lives better, yada yada). But then maybe I'm already beginning to do those things? (OK I KNOW this is corny, feel free to skip on the feel-fest.) Today I received an "extra credit" paragraph from one of my most challenging students. It was titled "My ELA Teachers." Apparently, for some reason, he decided to begin returning to class when I began teaching. I really don't know if that's a compliment or not, and I don't think I will change anything for him (especially because he likes to sing while I'm trying to read aloud), but maybe he'll get something via osmosis and that will be more than he was getting while chilling in the caf during our class period.

Anyways. I'm tired. I hope no one believes that teaching is something people learn how to do overnight. It's easy to just "do" teaching. It's hard to do it well.