lies my students told me

i recently got the chance to teach a class for about a week. of course, the "students" in the class were paid to be there and the subject matter wasn't nearly as scintillating as i would have liked -- unless you think student loan consolidation is real excitinig -- but i tried to make it as fun as possible. take it from me, i've been to plenty of new hire orientations and despite varying levels of personal interest, i do my best to pay attention.

but some of these kids -- mainly eighteen to twenty three or so -- were yawning, not looking at their materials, staring at me with a blank look for four hours, saying nothing, and not really looking like they were into it at all. this is on the first day of a potential job for them. the training was deemed "too intense" for some. trust me, my training session was hardly intense. but when half the class doesn't have the ability to properly learn, take notes, or succeed in a classroom environment, i can see why i suddenly looked like a standout in the training sessions i've been a part of.

it seemed like it was shocking to some that i was expecting people to retain this information for later use. by the end of the week, i was just trying to break things down to the very basics. we're talking apples and oranges and red fish blue fish here. but for some of the participants, that was still too much. and then they go home and don't study! whatever happened to impressing your potential employer?

i would like to think that this experience gave me some insight into the plight of our teachers. first, as a teacher, you have to fight the idea that you can make a difference in every student's life. half the class won't pay attention to you, one quarter isn't smart enough to keep up, and the remaining quarter are rapt and smart enough but maybe they have another issue that prevents them from fully connecting with the material. the best thing you can hope for is ten-percent of the class being ideal students.

of course, isn't it a teacher's job to reach that other ninety-percent? isn't that why they make the big bucks? in reality, as hard as teachers try, i think overwhelming pessimism and the toil of teaching will wear on them; forcing them to just concentrate on the really great or really terrible students.

i don't know anyone who has lasted in teaching for more than a few years; unless it's been at the elementary school level. now i know why. really, teaching a group of kids is just a mind numbing experience. and it's not that rewarding despite what we're led to believe. you're saying the same stuff over and over again -- imagine your eighth grade history teacher, who had to go over the same material five times a day, for years on end -- and soon you just want someone in the class to catch on so you can get to the end of the chapter.

it was, in some ways, a demoralizing experience. no wonder students get left behind. they shoot themselves in the foot. i had no idea the value of study skills. i guess super camp really did work for me.