The week has been rather uneventful so I have little to share. The BF is back from a visit with the family and everything's settled again. I saw a woman on the subway who looked like a high-priced call girl and really bugged me with her obvious "I'm so hot!" attitude. One of my fellow teachers is having a rough week back from our trip, losing an extended family member and getting chicken pox in the space of three days. (She's the one I really started to like a lot more during the trip, too.) I guess that the biggest thing this week was that today I really went deep with some of my students. I had a period-long discussion with one class stemming from their bad experience with a new teacher from another department. They missed out on the lesson, but I felt like the discussion was more important. I listened to them, I shared with them details about my high school experience... it was a bit intense. In another class I had to discuss an infringement of the honor code with some students who have real potential but aren't realizing it. One in particular is clearly quite gifted but doesn't fit the "geek" mold at all, rather he's got a lot of rebel in him. I only hope that he can realize that being cool doesn't conflict with being brilliant. Lastly, I had a discussion with my favorite gay-boy student, (I have a number of students who are obviously gay, but I only really empathize with one of the boys and one of the girls, surprisingly). He felt like I was coming down on him more than others in the class when they all exhibit similar behavior and was upset with me. I felt awful because I recognize that I expect more of him than some of his classmates and that I am harder on him because of it. I tried to explain this to him but also apologized. I wanted him to know that I really think that he's exceptional and that I didn't mean to be unfair. Personally, I suppose that I also realize that I do have favorites and that he's one of mine. I try to treat them all equally, but the truth is that I really appreciate this student more than others and when he doesn't measure up to my expectations I can be harder on him than I would be on someone else. I really care about all of them, but I realize that when this one isn't being his best, it bothers me more than if it were someone else. ... I guess that the whole point of all this is that I clearly am emotionally invested in my students and some more than others. I'm concerned that I lose perspective when dealing with them because of this and that some are getting an unfair amount of attention and others are getting less. There are so many quiet girls that I really have to make an effort to connect with simply because they are so withdrawn. And it's hard to get Linda or Cheryl or Junte to talk when Eric and Guy and Zach are SO vocal and asking for attention. I just want to do right by all of them.
So that's the stuff that's floating in my stream of consciousness.
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