A sham

I am a sham, or at least I feel like a sham. Not the kind you put over pillows, but a real has-been. Not that I ever was a "been" but anyways.

Today I had to present on a previous teaching experience I had. I had to present to a group of my collegues and some random guy I did not know. I felt nervous, as we always do during presentations - but mostly because my boss was there.

I cannot say much about what specifically happened, but I definately felt attacked. My collegues did not attack me, at least not enough to make me depressed about their comments.

But when it comes down to it, every time we have this specific seminar I always leave feeling like the worst teacher in the world. Most of the other TAs have taught before, either middle school or elementary, but I have never taught before so everything is new to me.

Not to say the training we receive has not helped me, because it certainly has. My lessons have improved drastically since I began, but there is not enough improvement to warrant my boss' approval.

Thus, I feel like a sham. I feel inadequate and small, especially when I am teaching.

A long time ago I thought this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, is this still the case? At this point in time I cannot tell. I do know that I should probably visit my old school and see how everyone is doing, visit the campus and my old advisor to see how things are going and look for advice.

I do not feel advised here, at my current university. I feel lost and neglected, to be honest. Is this the way everyone feels? Does everyone feel this lost and disconnected with the rest of their own graduate programs? Should I feel like this? Should I feel as though I am the worst teacher ever?

I told one of my collegues that I felt as though my students lost the teacher lottery, they got the worst teacher among our bunch of TAs. I do honestly feel horrible when I come to class unprepared or back-track when I answer questions. I know my students, at least one class, is growing more and more frusterated with me. For this reason, I cannot wait until the next semester when a new bunch of students will come to my doorstep and then the opportunity will present itself to do a "do-over" of the entire semester.

Then I will know the answers to all the important questions, I can give loads of homework and not feel guilty as I grade only 2 problems out of the whole bunch so I can give my students back their homework the very next day and close out my gradebook on that assignment and never accept late work. Then I can pull out the best problems and tell them that I believe they are very important, then I will have some sort of preview to what a test can be like - these are the things that make a teacher better, right?

Since hind-sight is 20/20 I know that my boss and other TAs that have taught the class before can see my mistakes from a mile away, they have taught this course before and have been "successful" (whatever that means) at teaching the course, passing some students and moving on. I am, to some degree, afraid that so many of my students will not pass that it will become questionable whether or not I can complete my job and be effective.

But some of the burden falls on the students, right? No matter how good (or bad) of an instructor you have, if you want to learn mathematics or any other discipline, you will teach yourself if need be. Students should put effort into their courses and really work towards completing the assignments on time and to the best of their ability. Do my students do this? No. They turn in late work all the time, which backs up my grading, and they often do not pay attention to the suggestions I am giving them.

I have my own studies to worry about to, but I worry about my students work much more often than my own. I do not believe that their grade should depend on whether or not the answer is right or wrong, but more often than not it does and I cannot change that, I cannot change the system. The system is in place, and I have to abide by the rules of that system. Which often means arguing with my students about staying on schedule and keeping with the program.

I only wish my students' homework would grade itself, then I would not have a pile of grading to do every night that only grows as time passes. I wish I could discipline myself to keeping up with it, then I would have no problem grading homework and giving it back and my students would be happy and I would be happy and my boss could get off my back about it.

Either way, my issues will not resolve themselves over night. I have been accused of being unprepared and rightly so - but I have also been accused of not caring for my students' well-being and that is not so. I do care, I care a great deal but this does not manifest itself into staying up all night working on lesson plans and I believe that disappoints my employer.

I will go to sleep tonight and try to not think about the agony my students are feeling as they prepare for their exam. I have an exam of my own to study for but I do not know if I will get to that tonight at all. I may prepare myself for sleep and nodd off so I can feel refreshed tomorrow. Who knows. Tomorrow is another day, another teach, more experiences to make me feel better, or worse, about myself and my job. My life has become my job. Woe is me.