By Michael Peacy

Sometimes teaching seems like the most natural thing to do. Most of the time I feel like I have everything under control. The reality is far from the truth. After all, I am just now finishing my third year. As much as I want to feel like I have all the answers, I realize there is a lot to this job I still need to learn. At times, it seems like there might not be a good answer to my struggles. Some of the struggles I face are organization, time constraints during the day and, finally, helping students who seem to have given up. Coming up with solutions for these struggles will make my job easier.

The first thing I struggle with, and this has plagued me since my childhood, is organization. Anyone who has seen my classroom can attest to that. My front counter is covered in papers and my desk is in about the same condition. It seems that I have no time to clean (or maybe no desire to). I start every day thinking, “OK, today I’m going to get organized and get my room organized for good.” Honest, I do have a plan and the best intentions; it just never seems to work out. I do have set places to put everything; the challenge is making sure everything gets to the right spot the first time. I’ve identified the problems and I am starting to tackle them one at a time.

The other thing I need to do a better job of is throwing away all the junk mail. Every day there’s a plethora of junk mail in my mailbox that just needs to be tossed. Instead, I tend to grab it, walk in my room, set it down and forget about it. Now there’s a new pile created, probably on top of the pile already there, waiting for company. Another thing that leads to the paper pile problem is when I’m passing out work. I tend to just put down the pile of papers when I’m done with it. Where did I put it? I have no idea, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere. I do have a place to put it; I just need to make sure I get it there in the first place. I am starting to get better at all this. Everyone will start to notice the changes… sooner or later. There’s just so much stuff in my room that I need to go through and get rid of. I haven’t been teaching that long; I shouldn’t be having an overflow problem already.

Time management is my next struggle. It’s not because I can’t manage my time, but because there’s not enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. Teaching provides me with opportunities that I could never have imagined. For example, I’m going to space camp this summer, something I’ve dreamed of doing since childhood. In order to be chosen for this amazing opportunity, I spent hours completing the scholarship application. Of course, this was on top of teaching five classes, coaching, lesson planning, helping students, and working out, not to mention being home for my son and wife, my first priorities. This is a pretty hefty stack to balance and it doesn’t even include the most time-consuming task of all, grading papers. My main problem, if you want to call it a ‘problem,’ is that I want to be everywhere and do everything. Teaching is truly allowing me to have a second childhood. So much fun, not enough time to enjoy it.

Finally, motivating students who don’t want to be at school, let alone learn, is a struggle I’m sure every teacher deals with. Students are dealing with many issues outside of the classroom; I understand that. Sometimes when I hear some students’ personal lives, it makes me quite sad. However, there’s a whole classroom of students who need and want to learn, so sometimes I need to take a firm stance for the benefit of the whole group. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much for the student who is distracted or distracting the learning environment. For example, I have a student this year who just can’t cooperate with anyone. None of the approaches I’ve tried has worked with him. Other teachers are fighting the same battle with him and it seems like we are all losing, but no one is giving up.

The nature of teaching is that as soon as one problem is solved, another one pops up. Even multiple, creative strategies won’t solve all my problems or all my students’ problems in and out of the classroom. Of course, if I could magically figure that out, I’d write a book and make millions. Working with kids is not a stress-free job. I will continue to get more organized – and maybe I’ll invent a clock so I can do everything I want to do in a day. I will continue to keep looking for solutions to motivate ‘’reluctant’ students. And mostly, I will try to keep the little struggles from overwhelming my bigger struggles in teaching. Easier said than done.

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Posted May 30, 2007