defecits

Like most boys, I think, I always thought my father had some incredibly obnoxious habits, particularly when it came to how he dealt with me. Probably the most intolerable (and cause of the most fights) was how he always focussed on what I didn't do instead of what I did accomplish. If I'd bring home a math test that was a 95%, he'd say "why wasn't it a hundred?" Keep in mind that I was not a particularly good student throughout most of high school, even though every standardized test I ever took was scored in the 99th percentile.

That's one hell of a whammy to lay on your kid, always asking why a B wasn't an A and why an A wasn't perfect. There was never any real follow up to help me get perfect scores, I just had to live with the imperfections and constant disappointment. I think it's like catholics and guilt, and it's something I still carry with me to this day. If I don't do something perfectly I'm like as not to worry about that little bit that wasn't right and forget about the rest. Everything I wrote before about counting your victories is crap and I really don't believe it most days. I want to believe, but I really don't, not deep down.

I "only" got a 3.89 GPA in grad school. And I'm pissed at myself about it. I could have gotten a 4.0 if I'd worked at it.

Because I keep carrying this big whammy around with me it's tough to leave work most days with a sense of accomplishment, even though my dean and my mentor teacher keep telling me that I'm doing a good job and tell me the horror stories of other first year teachers. I keep looking in my gradebook and see that at least a third of my students aren't doing their homework, and I really feel like there's some way in which I'm failing them because I can't inspire them (or coerce them) to get to work. I've connected on some level with most of my students, but some of my struggling students are still deliberately keeping me at a distance and the frustration that I can't reach them at all is making me grind my teeth some days.

On the flip side, I know that the first year or two are supposed to be hard, almost hellish sometimes, and some days I feel like what should have gone incredibly badly was really okay and I'm trying to think of that as an accomplishment. A few of my failing students are starting to do enough work to pass my class but aren't working so hard in their other classes. A few others aren't doing any work but they're opening up to me, and I have a feeling that someday soon I'll find that opening that will allow me to convince them to put in enough effort to pass. Small victories.

That isn't enough to fill me with the sense of price and accomplishment I want to feel from the job I feel like I was born to do, but it's a start. Sunny days help a lot, too.