What I hate about being a teacher

Students sometimes ask me, "Ms. Wray, how do you read something that's really boring?"

Usually I pretend to be at an audition and I read out loud. That's what I am doing now (or was until I took a break to blog and drink some coffee) as I read through the tons of essays on Beowulf that I have to read.

It's not that each essay, when read by itself, is boring. It's only when one has to read 50 essays on the same topic expressing the same ideas that the process becomes brain numbing, and I have to resort to reading out loud in order to keep my focus.

Sometimes I wish that I didn't have to grade essays, but that's my job, isn't it? Granted it's the lamest part of the job, but an important responsibility nonetheless. After all, I can't let my wonderful students go on making the same errors in grammar, punctuation, logic and spelling forever! At some point, one needs to know how to spell the word, "basically". One needs to know that one can't use the first person when writing a literature essay. One needs to know writing for pages and pages on a topic isn't worth anything if what one is writing does not make sense.

I guess my frustration isn't really about critiquing essays. It's about the game that we play: students and teachers. The game is that I try to make students do as much work as possible (in order to learn the most) and students whittle that away to as little work as possible (and thus learn the least). I hate that. I hate force-feeding beautiful works of literature in the scowling faces of students who feel imprisoned. I hate having to give writing assignments because I know that it's the only way my students will read the piece I've given them. I hate that students always ask me for their "grade" meaning their current average, but hardly ever ask if they can discuss a point of interest or confusion about the latest reading.

I don't expect students to love English class for its own sake. I would worry for a student who didn't care at all about her grade. It's just disheartening to come into work each day and be surrounded by people who make a point of letting me know - either by not showing up, or leaving halfway through class, or not doing their homework, or not bringing their reading, or not bringing a notebook or a pen, or talking while I'm talking, or talking while their fellow students are talking or texting, for God's sake - that none of what I do is a priority for them.

I'll be leaving Duke at the end of second advisory. One student said that he'd like to throw me a party; a sweet gesture, but the last thing that I want. What I want is to see students taking their work in English seriously, not for the sake of my fragile ego (well, maybe a little) but for their own sakes. This is English literature, where one is supposed to learn how to write correctly, think analytically, to express and defend one's reasoned points-of-view. If we treat it like a joke, or a mere waste of time to be endured for an appropriate number on a report card, then when will we grasp these essential abilities? It's senior year. If not now, then when?