new direction?

The primary reason I decided to go back to school was because I wanted to teach and make a living at it. For some reason, this year of teaching kicked my ass and I'm really looking forward to not teaching sociology next year. I don't know if it's the structure of the university, the increasing illiteracy of the students, my not wanting to be here, the lack of chemistry with my students, or whatever other reasons I can think of, but this year of teaching left me uninspired and utterly frustrated. This will inevitably sound cruel, but I got so little from my students. They were such lumps. Ordinarily, I get hugs from students at the end of the year. This year, I'll be lucky if I don't get punched in the face. They hate me and I kind of hate them. When I think of most of them individually, I don't really hate them. But there was no chemistry, no fun, no engagement in the classrooms this year. It was maddening.

It used to be that the political nature of my courses is made some students have a distaste for me. But this year, it's just us. We don't like one another very much. I am probably harder on them than I should be but, please - in university one should know the difference between their, they're, and there and that a lot is two words. One should be able to structure a coherent sentence and engage in more than basic regurgitation.

Yet, I can't help but wonder if I am punishing people who are forced to engage in a failed system. The more I teach, and the longer I teach, I'm noticing the decline of students' ability to translate the ideas in their heads to the page. I'm noticing their inability or unwillingness to move beyond description into analysis. I think this is a function of a failing school system and their performance has been determined well before I get ahold of them.

But I also think (and here's where I become the asshole who sounds old) that the internet is ruining the classroom experience. Nothing irritates me more than 25% of the class checking their email, texting, chatting, looking at pictures on facebook, and watching fucking TV while in the classroom. It's a new-ish phenomenon and it sucks. It sucks that I have to be the disciplinarian jerk telling other adults to knock it the fuck off. It sucks that their attention is so scattered that the most basic things that I said a gagillion times in class show up on their papers and tests in the form of omission or flagrant rule-breaking. I feel like a failure when I see it.

I co-TAed this term - splitting a set of tutorials with another TA. They love her and didn't really like me. My course director said, "***** has all the same complaints that you have. But you put it out there." I can't help it. I see this thing that was so important to me flushed further and down the toilet. I think I need to take a break, regroup, and think through if and how to be committed to teaching in this increasingly irritating context.