The needs of my students nourish me as a teacher. As I think about all of the language needs that they have, I become a glutton who’s on an endless search for more. By more, I mean more ideas, new teaching aids, more creativity in my methods–it’s a hungry obsession that nearly drives me insane! (Sometimes I think it has a worse effect on my family and colleagues than it does me! But then, again, I must consider the exhaustion that I feel each and every weeknight as I come home feeling as if I made little headway within my various classrooms.)
Maybe I’m trying too hard; maybe I’m planning the wrong lessons, I think to myself. Why can’t I meet their written language needs more quickly and more adequately than what I have? I really don’t see myself as a failure, because I know that I make a big impact upon these students each and every day that I spend with them. It’s just an all-encompassing feeling of keeping them behind when I should be getting somewhat closer to catching them up in their Reading and Language Arts subject areas that bothers me so much. Burn out!! That’s what everyone calls this second questioning that I continually do, but I don’t want to give up! The last time that I felt somewhat like this, I even stepped out of deaf education for two years. Did that help? No, I’m right back into deaf ed once again!
