State of mind

I am not teacher of the year. I am not surprised. I am still just as disappointed as I knew I would be.

Neither of my predictions for the winner were accurate. The winner is a fellow English teacher who's been teaching a little longer than me. She's a good teacher. One of the reasons she won is that last year she was responsible for training all faculty members on reading strategies they can use in their classes. Basically, once a month she got a sub for her classes and spent all day doing short (30-minutes or less) training sessions for all faculty on how to teach reading strategies in every class. She was good at it. She is a good teacher.

I am still jealous.

Partly I am jealous becuase I do a lot of stuff, too, but the stuff I do hasn't been getting wide acknowlegement. For example, I wrote a script last year for a video we used to be accredited as a school. It was a huge favor to the administration. When the video got screened at the faculty meeting, my name was not even mentioned. I am very happy to do stuff for others without pay, but I am also a person who desperately needs acknowlegement and approval from others. I didn't expect a trophy, but I did expect them to mention that I helped when they showed it. They didn't. The principal thanked me privately. At the meeting the student who shot and edited the video was thanked and was even there to hear the applause. I was hurt. That is just one example. I help out a lot of people and work on a lot of things without being recognized - actually, a whole lot more than almost any of the people I work with. I had hoped that others saw that.

The biggest reason I think it gets under my skin a bit that this particular teacher was chosen as teacher of the year is that a whole lot of the lessons and strategies she uses were taken directly from me. I am happy to share them. I consider it a compliment when she sees or hears what I'm doing in my classroom and asks for a copy. And she doesn't just use them blindly; she customizes them to her teaching, but still. I won't give you a laundry list, but I can tell you that a ton of my strategies, many of which I came up with myself (this is my best strength as a teacher), are at work in her classroom. I'm glad she's using them and, again, I think she really is a wonderful teacher. Still, it kinda hurts. I feel a little like Cyrano de Bergerac

So I am pretty much depressed. I have been for a while. I am just in this sort of malaise. Last night I found myself sitting on the couch drinking a coke and eating chocoloate chips. Andrew said, "Aww. You're depressed. Poor baby." I hadn't realized that until he said it. I mean, I knew I was depressed, but hadn't connected it to the sugar.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm trying to take less work home, and succeeding, but that doesn't really make me feel better. Some days I just want to sob during first period or after school. I seem to work so hard and get so little recognition. Then of course then there are the mistakes I make that stress me out. And the number of things I fall behind on.

I am hoping NCTE in Pittsburg will perk me up. It's only about two weeks away now. It should give me some new ideas and some time to focus on my work while not "down in it."

We want to have a house, but seem to barely get by each month with the bills as it is.

We want to have kids, but can't seem to get pregnant. No doubt this is due to the stress of our jobs and the pace of our lives.

Both of us know we are stuck in a rut, but aren't sure exactly how to get out of it.

He wants his PhD, but right now we need to get out of debt and he needs to do some things to get up to snuff for a really good graduate program. That's practically impossible while teaching high school. But we can't afford for him not to teach high school right now.

Like I said, malaise.