There Is No Big Picture, Yet

First-Year Teaching Fatigue.

Now. Before I begin let me just clarify: this is not fatigue of teaching, but fatigue from teaching.

Which, in my book, are entirely different things.

Even with parent meetings which kept us at school until well past 6 pm last night, and even with an entire weekend ahead (and with the end of the quarter looming--for both teachers and students) I know some part of me is excited to see my students again--Monday morning bleary-eyed, rumbling along at half speed, and to carry on.
There are those moments--when I ask a student a question and you can see their brains starting to churn, mulling over ideas--old and new--trying to find the connections. and that expression--not totally present with us in class, but wandering off somewhere in the outer-reaches of the cerebral cortex, to me is just beautiful.

So. what I want to write about has nothing--or at least very little--to do with the teaching part of teaching.

I knew that this would be challenging for me from the get-go: but one of the hardest parts of teaching for me is turning off teaching: stopping myself from thinking about teaching day in and day out; stop replaying lessons in my brain, scrutinizing them for hidden hints for how to teach better; stop worrying about homework or lesson plans or documentation for the Ministry of Education. Even though my body goes home at the end of the day, sometimes it takes a while for my brain to disengage from schooling and make that same journey home.

and I'm finding that this is getting exhausting. like get in bed at 7:30 on a Wednesday kind of exhausting. almost to tired to walk the block and a half from the apartment to the corner store to get milk for the morning coffee. although--for the record--I haven't been reduced to taking the lift the two flights up to our apartment--that still seems ridiculous.  (the time change hasn't helped at all, either. nor the 5am call to prayer).

I'm sure that the challenge is also compounded by being in an dual-immersion language context (and being an introvert) and that other than holing myself up in our apartment, everything; from going to the store to buy milk to going out for coffee, to sitting with the neighbors chatting or eating dinner, to just walking around town involves some sort of language-input-processing (and then sometimes switching between languages). I miss the true quiet of nature--which finding usually involves a drive up into the mountains. I think because last year I trained my brain to take as much in as I could, to use every waking second, every instance of language contact to soak up just a few more words, I'm also having a hard time 'turning off' that stimuli as well. or finding the energy to stay fully engaged. because--by now, I can follow a lot of what gets said--but there's always details which are just beyond my grasp. things I can't quite catch. and the more I understand, the more I want to understand even more. it's a vicious cycle.

I think part of the challenge ahead is shifting the way I use energy in the classroom--so that I'm not depleting my stores quite as quickly, part of it is finding/making time/energy to do things unrelated to school which fill me with satisfaction (like taking an online course on political theory with Zeko. and again I wonder 'just how did we find each other?' or learning songs to sing while I'm waiting for the bus to come, or making pickles (so delicious!)) and part of it is patience.

Sharr, near Leshnica.
a different sort of 'big picture' 

Talking with Nicole--one of the Elementary School teachers, and one of the other two Americans at the school, she noted that first year teaching is even harder because you don't have the benefit of seeing the big picture: "there is no big picture your first year" she said. "You're making it."So I don't have the instant gratification of seeing my students improve, because Monday to Tuesday, to Friday to Monday, the changes are incremental: sometimes invisible, and sometimes I get just a glimmer that something is changing somewhere. and I know, or at least I hope, these small changes are adding up. But really I don't know. because I don't know fully where my students (and here I am again. talking about my students. I promise I will write something where the word student does not appear. not even once. but it may be challenging) started from. Or what they were like last year. So my students can see their 'big picture,' especially the ones who were struggling last year, they see their grades improve. But to me, this is just the way they are. I would never have guessed that some of my students--who to me are focused (or as focused as 11th grade guys can be) responsible, on the path to becoming mature individuals--were receiving Ds and Fs last year, having major behavior problems, constantly in the principal's office. And no. of course this dramatic change is not my doing, but theirs. Maybe I'm helping. maybe not. That's not exactly the question, at least for me. but how to I help. more. better.

it's a hard question to turn off.

and if anyone has suggestions or ideas--especially with coping with fatigue: I'm ready to hear them.

so with that said: I'm going to clean the apartment. tune out and listen to NPR. catch up with the world.