Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Gettin' it done

The past few weeks have been rough on me, health-wise. I don’t get sick very much, but have managed to contract two colds in just over a month. Both of them have dragged on interminably. The one I’m recovering from now started almost two weeks ago, and I’ve still got a lingering cough and congestion. As if that weren’t bad enough, last Thursday I became infected with cellulitis, a skin infection that progresses so rapidly that it scares the hell out of you. In less than 24 hours it went from something that looked like a pimple to an infection that covered nearly half my face, making me look like I’d just been horribly irradiated. Some strong antibiotics are taking care of it and now I’m left with what looks like a little bit of sunburn.

For the first time in quite a while, I took time off of work because I was actually sick. I’ve used sick days before, but rarely because of anything worse than a lack of sleep or need for a “mental health day.” There was plenty of work to get done while I was home, but I did little besides nap, read, and watch TV. Even after the fever faded and I really felt okay, I still goofed off and napped constantly. I didn’t even get my laundry done over the weekend

All this makes me feel like a big fraud. A while back I wrote about the need to teach our students to get the job done, even when there’s a significant obstacle. And one thing I’ve always taken pride in is practicing what I preach. So why the heck did I fall down on the job this time around? I’m just feeling a little tired from this illness, just a little run down, not like there’s some unmovable mountain between me and what I need to get done.

I don’t have any real answers, except for maybe that I’m not finding this tutoring work as enthralling and consuming as I did classroom teaching. No excuse, I know, but I can’t think of much else.

Maybe one of the great things about classroom teaching is that at any given moment there are twenty-odd chances to engage someone. Tutoring one on one with kids that really don’t want to cooperate and are absolutely unenthusiastic about learning doesn’t give you this opportunity nearly as much. That engagement comes more rarely, and the moments are fleeting. It’s hard to keep your energy level up when you’ve got a kid that will rarely do more than shrug at you when asked a question. Those moments of engagement in the classroom always gave me goose bumps, and were a big part of the reason I was able to push through those tough days in the classroom.

It’s 2 PM now, and like many days I can’t think about much but getting home to take a nap.

Greatness is getting the job done when it’s hard work. This doesn’t feel like greatness.

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