Terrified of failure

It's hard to believe that I haven't posted since last weekend. (Well, not including the meme earlier today.) It's just that SO MUCH of my life is taken up with teaching. Some days, like Wednesday, I feel like I've been dragged through a sausage grinder. SLOWLY. I just sat down and CRIED because I was so intensely aware of my students' lack of progress. And because I was so tired. I tell you what, I was NOT looking forward to Thursday. Mondays and Thursdays are especially hard to look foward to, because I do tutoring for an hour before school and an hour after school. I wish I could do it just after, because I like having the before-school time to get ready for the day. But I've got some students who can NOT make it after school.

Oh, and I bet Wednesday was also bad because I'd had a field trip on Tuesday. And then on Wendesday I was reviewing the work they'd done the day before, for the sub. Some of it was on prepositions, and when told to underline the prepositions, some of them were underlining nouns and verbs and they should KNOW better! Sweet Jesus, this is ninth grade! And I had students coming in who COULD NOT identify anything other than nouns and action verbs. Plus, I think they were guessing on some of the nouns...

At least yesterday and today they did much, MUCH better with raising their hands. Sometimes it helps to think of them as large, ungainly third-graders. With hormones.

I have now given out four of MY books and demanded that students read them. Actually, no - I only did that with three. The one student did CHOOSE a book. I am praying REALLY REALLY hard that I can be a teacher like Miss Roginski. Plus I have the added luxury of not having to worry about my students' math grades! ;D (You'll have to read the book to get that.)

I really hope they like the books. I mean, they're GOOD BOOKS. And they're easy, but they're not "baby stuff." I'd really like to get to the point where we could do one novel unit as a "choose-your-own" and then read Treasure Island at the end of the semester together, after they've kind of cut their teeth. But I'm scared of the idea of having everyone reading something different!!

Please pray for me, that I will be able to figure out how to meet each student's individual needs. Pray especially for my students, that they will develop good judgement about their priorities (even when it means something comes before English homework!) and a strong work ethic, as well as competent communication skills. Pray for my husband, that he will continue to be the patient encourager who knows when to pamper me and when to give me a good sharp nudge. Pray for my family, that they will continue to forgive me when I don't call as often as they'd like.

These are my prayers, too. (Those and the scripture thing...)