slogging through

It's always this way at the end. I just don't care. I keep forgetting things. I babble on about nothing in class, while thinking about what I should have discussed if I would have made an effort to plan and prepare. And they don't care. I know they don't. They just find me tedious and the work tedious and wish that I would stop talking and that they could stop writing. It's always this way and I always manage and the semester usually ends well and they feel good about what they've learned and accomplished and I feel good about what I've taught them and I know that I will miss them all, just a little. It's always this way, so why does it feel so much worse this time around?

Maybe it's because, as Lynn pointed out the other day, I have been teach for five semesters straight. But this makes me feel like a boob because other people work year-round without 3-month breaks and they seem to manage. But yes, I have been overworked this year--overworked and underappreciated, I tell you. And there are the break-ups and new relationships and the family matters and not enough time to go running. There are reasons.

But the reasons don't matter. What matters is that there are only two more weeks of class left and I can hardly stand it. I want to cancel the rest of my classes and tell my students to go home, to not worry about thinking and rewriting anymore. I want to tell them that it's hopeless, that clearly I can't teach them anything. Last night, I had to have a serious wrestle with myself in order to find some sort of motivation for class today, some reason to keep trying, to believe that I might actually be able to teach them something and that they might actually care. Today, after receiving my feedback on his draft, a student asked if I didn't like him very much. No, I protested. You just don't know how to make an argument. And he doesn't. But maybe it's true that I don't like him very much. Or any of them.

But I dislike that I dislike them all. It makes me feel like a horrible teacher. And usually I like my students very much. I usually find them clever and interesting and a pleasure to work with. So all I want is for the semester to end with me holding on to some bit of faith in my students and my own efforts. Wish me luck.