Teacher

I'm in my third week of ESL Teacher Training. It's been a stressful week, but not because of the training. I'm actually finding the training to be easy -- for one obvious reason -- I have 2 1/2 years teaching experience. But it's precisely those years of experience that have me so mixed up about my feelings right now.
I left teaching burnt-out. Whatever that means. I use the phrase all the time and people seem to respond as if they understand, but I'm not sure I understand. Let me try to be more specific. I left teaching in utter depression. I couldn't stand another day of feeling so useless and frustrated. My heart would drop when my subway reached my station, and I dreaded the walk to the school. The end of each day felt like a miraculous relief, but by that time I was exhausted. I would spend hours in my room, grading, planning, calling parents, crying.
But when I left teaching, I felt like a total traitor. I left in the middle of the year. I did everything within my power to smooth the transition for my students. I waited until the grading period ended, completed my last report cards, passed my supplies on to the next teacher, gave her my phone number, and then stumbled out the door.
The next month was like a breath of fresh air. The responsibility of 60 middle school students had been lifted from my shoulders. I didn't have to feel like a failure each day. I wasn't being judged according to whether these students were reading and writing better than they had before entering my classroom. But after that initial relief wore off, I felt a little lost. I had spent three years devoting just about every ounce of strength and energy I had to try and be a teacher.
I find I want people to understand, and I think they do. I want to just gush about the experience. I want to convey to people just how impossible my situation was. And when they say they get it, I just want to keep telling nightmarish stories.
I had learned how to manage a room of 11 and 12 year olds in the South Bronx - something that with the exception of my one nightmarish class - I was able to do. I had read books, attended workshops, experimented in my classroom. I had applied for grants, begged my principal for money, spent my weekends and summers hunting down used books, spent my own money on library books, and eventually put together a classroom library that was the showcase of the school. And when a reading specialist visited my classroom to help me assess how to better put the Reading and Writing Workshop into practice, her comment was, "you don't have enough books. It's impossible to teach this method with so few books." And that seemed to sum up my experience at that Middle School. Enormous effort and exhaustion only to realize that it was still impossible.
Of course, I was making a difference. Something that I began to see more clearly when my exhaustion and depression wore off. And sometimes I beat myself up for that. For not being patient enough to make it through to the end of the year and see the progress that was happening.
So now I'm dipping my toe back into the teaching waters, and I have a lot of reason to be cautious. If nothing else, I need to develop some kinder habits in regards to judging myself. And I need to be more selective of the jobs that I take. No more working in failing environments.