The impression that I get

Sometimes I wonder about myself as a teacher. I think I teach much like I am a student. I rely on my quickness to get me through. Do I read all of the assigned text? Sadly, no. Do I grade every assignment I make? Nope. Why? Well – I find that I don’t have the time to do these things. By the time I have created a lesson plan, and gotten in front of a group of students – I have run out of the time to deeply read and grade. I marvel at my professors. If they have these same issues – they do a very good job covering them up! I get back papers with insightful comments – and helpful suggestions. I attend classes in which the conversation is rich and layered – designed specifically to make me think more and more deeply about that which I was supposed to have read.


At least now, in my graduate work, I am more likely to have read the selections than I was during my undergrad. Admittedly – I skated by all through high school and college on my ability to gather what happened in the reading from the comments of my classmates – and then make my own comments accordingly.
Is this an indication that I am smart? I don’t know. I think it’s more an indication that I’ve been lucky. To not have been exposed so far is a miracle. How did my 8th graders not know that Treasure Island was too boring even for me to have read? Of course if I could have been honest with them, I would have told them that Treasure Island was not my idea – and were it up to me, they wouldn’t have had to read it. But the fact of the matter is – I required them to read it, write about it, take tests over it…

But I was unwilling to do the same.

So – what kind of a teacher does that make me? A lazy one? A scared one? I bad one?

Maybe just one who works on a blog post while her students work on classwork.

*sigh*