Disillusionment

I felt that this section addressed many of the issues that I am personally concerned about in my own teaching career. The entry about the special education teacher who had a caseload of 26 students to keep track of all with separate IEPs and 6 classes each to keep track almost made me break out in a sweat as though they were my own responsibility... As someone who went to a very small high school myself, I am constantly afraid that I have aimed all of my teaching towards smaller schools and smaller classrooms. This entry made me think a lot about the different ways I will have to come up with to ensure that my students each know that I am aware of what is going on with them and that I can give them each individual attention as needed. The age of smaller schools is rapidly coming to a close, and I feel that many teachers become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of students in their classrooms. I don't know yet what the answers are, but I am glad that my eyes were opened to this issue.

I also related very personally to the entry about the coach and teacher who taught in the same school that his sons went to, and had to face the fact that he had neglected his own children in favor of helping students who needed his support, in his opinion, 'more'. My father coached football and wrestling for my two younger brothers, and although he was not a teacher also, my brothers have had to grapple for years with the fact that my father knew that my brothers were 'tough' and supposedly didn't need the encouragement that he would give out to the other athletes. When I am a teacher, I will strive to teach in a different school system to allow my children the space that they need to grow and have experiences without my presence, but even more than that I think that it is important that educators dole out their encouragements to ALL students, regardless of how much they appear to 'need' the reinforcement.