I Am Not Superhuman

It's been a good minute or so since my last "why I dislike teaching" post. A relaxing summer living a make-believe European life for 7 weeks did good for my teaching soul. Since August, positive vibes towards teaching can be likened to a snowball rolling down a snowy mountain. Grows and grows as it rolls and rolls. Except this snowball no longer has it's snowy mountain. It's withering now. Each day. And it's to a point where I must let loose.

I attended Asilomar this past Saturday. One day trip. 2 hours down, 2 hours back. I was sick too. But hype surrounding this math conference made it impossible to pass up. I don't regret it either. But attending Saturday made the weekend feel short, now it's Sunday night way past my teacher bedtime, and I'm still sick. Verdict says 'take a sick day.'

Someone tell me why it feels so difficult to throw in the towel now. During this conference, I was inspired by all the beautiful things being done in math classrooms. I am motivated to increase my students curiousity for math the same way I am inspired to improve my own practice. I hung out with teachers all day, exchanged war stories, and laughed at jokes only math teachers would understand. It was fun.

Throwing in the towel tomorrow means we lose a day (cus, really, I don't get much done w/ subs... ever), which means we fall behind on a curriculum already not as good as those teachers I heard present/interacted with this Saturday.

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I want to be the superhuman teacher I know I can be, but I am not superhuman. And it's especially difficult to be superhuman when you combat against 100 mini-superhumans daily and have your own normal human life to develop.

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Lastly, a photo, b/c the last I saw the sun hit the horizon was in Alicante, Spain. (And we need more pictures on this blog, anyway). Attending Asilomar was not all math and games, it was a lil bit of this too...