Hey!

So I'm checking my grades for this semester, and I got all As and an A- (so far). Now as an undergrad, I would have been doing cartwheels. But as a grad student, I'm a little offended by the minus. I've been told over and over that everyone gets As and even if you don't it doesn't make a difference. I thought I put out a decent effort in that class too. Well it doesn't really matter much since no one will ask to see my gpa or anything, but it's insulting. Well, it does cement the decision I've been toying with of swapping out of that particular professor's research group.

I wonder if I earned the grade... I did think my paper was satisfactory enough, but perhaps not. He couldn't have faulted my participation. I mean, I didn't read a whole lot of the reading he assigned, but so much of it was his own writing and that kinda got old after a while. And even when I didn't read, I was always participating. I guess it must have been the paper then. But even so, I thought I did a passable job on that. Well, I can always ask after the break if I could get any feedback on the paper. Perhaps I could see what I was lacking. And if I wasn't lacking anything, then maybe he didn't like me.

Ahh memories. I remember as a kid I was always convinced my teachers didn't like me. Which was probably true. I can sometimes be a bit bratty. And I don't think they really didn't like me or anything- they just liked to put me in my place because I was so difficult. I recognized myself feeling this way towards one of the middle school students I observe. I think I recognized why I might be frustrating to teaching since this one guy was frustrating to me and kinda reminded me of myself. He was so certain he was right and was always goofing off instead of checking his work, so when he was finally wrong, I have to admit that I felt a little gleeful. Shame on me. Of course, I was bratty and deserved to be occasionally put in my place. But even so, I was still really enthused about the material. I mean, I was arrogant (probably still am), but that's not the worst crime around.

Who am I kidding. Arrogance pisses me off a lot. When I was younger, I was really quite arrogant and I've worked pretty hard to be a little more laid back about stuff like that. I mean, whatever reaction I have to a bratty student, someone else will probably also have that same frustrated reaction. An arrogant student really stands to rub people the wrong way. It's better for the student to learn to be a little more humble early on by being put in his place more often (instead of just being allowed to be arrogant).

Then again, I don't want to push my values on my students. I was always a little disdainful of teachers trying to put me in my place because I thought their values were all messed up. Why did so many people have such a huge issue with me when other students were showing up to dances shitfaced and smoking pot (a cardinal sin at my high school) and doing other things that I always thought were worse than any of the things I did.

It's really weird seeing things from the other side. I guess the best thing to do is to think of the teachers I had that I really liked. Even some of them didn't like me that much and it hurt my feelings when I found out. But there's one teacher who actually did like me: Mrs. Rose. I wish she was still alive. She was the best teacher I've ever had. She really understood her students and she was always really caring and accepting of us and our faults. She never tried to put me down.

She's a pretty big role model to aspire to, but I think I can do it if I really care about my students. A lot of teachers don't really do that. I'm not saying they don't care about their jobs, but they see it more as a job. Or they see troublesome kids and think that they need to be quieted or punished so that they don't do it any more. Unfortunately, I'm like that with workshift sometimes. There have been a few moments (which I am immensely proud of, by the way) where I was hassling a bad workshifter and I suddenly changed gears and asked how I could help, and meant it. Then it worked. All the threats and punishments in the world won't necessarily make someone a good workshifter. Caring about them seems to do a lot more, but how do you care about someone who blows off shifts and then tries to weasel out of it? How do you care about a student who acts like they know everything and constantly disrupts the class? I don't know how Mrs. Rose did it. I wish I could ask her. I really, really wish I could ask her.

Well, if I've done it with workshift, maybe I can do it with teaching. Workshift will potentially be a good practice grounds for me. If I can work with the people who go down hours, then maybe I'll be better prepared to do it when I'm a teacher.

We'll see how things go next semester when I have control from the very beginning. I think it'll be a lot smoother. And I already know who are going to be my problem workshifters. And all the worst problem workshifters are already gone. Well I'm just going to have to see. I think it'll be ok though. For all my grumbling and angry bravado, I'm really a pretty caring person. I've just got to tap into that and try for a little less of the bravado.