Really...I mean, REALLY?

I really feel for the spelling bee announcer in this video.  I mean really, she isn't that hard to understand.  She speaks perfectly clear a few dozen times.  Seriously, what is the deal kid?  Clean the gunk out of your ears and listen.  At first I thought he was kidding.  Maybe it was an Onion video that made fun of situations like this, but nope, it was real.  You can see the relief in his eyes when he finally realizes what word it was that he was to spell.  He spells it easily and then sits back down.  That feeling and look he has at the end is what teachers commonly refer to as an "ah-ha" moment.  That moment where after a certain amount of time a child finally "gets it."  You hear about this moment when you go through school and you are told that it is the greatest feeling you can have as a teacher.  That feeling you have that after so many hours of planning and working (sometimes with just this student in mind or at hand) you get when everything comes together in the child's mind and then they understand everything.  That is the coveted and prized award that teachers get for working harder than they are paid for.  "That's why we do it" I've heard, "That's when everything you sacrificed becomes worth it."

What happens when they don't get it though?  What if you work harder than you ever had, sacrificing your time to make an impact on students, and then nothing happens?  What is the opposite feeling of relief and success?  Let me tell you, because I've been feeling it for the last month. A few feelings come to mind, but these are the ones that I feel the deepest: depression, sadness, and failure.  They don't tell you about that in school.  Let me tell you why I've been feeling this lately. 

For the last month and a half I've been spending an hour after school tutoring my really low kids in math.  Once a week I have my class take a skills test on math concepts we've already learned this year and then I take the lowest scoring students and then break them into 2 groups that I meet with after school for a half hour each.  I originally thought I was going to cure their math woes because I had more time to help them.  I spent the first week with them and felt that they understood everything.  I gave them the same test and then I compared the scores.  To my surprise, to my utter astonishment, most of them did a point or two better, a couple really aced it, and then a couple did worse.  WORSE! How does this happen?  They were fine when we talked about each skill individually, but put it all onto one test and they act like they've never seen it before.  I mean...REALLY!?

Well, I'm sure the month of March has something to do with these feelings I've been having.  March is the longest month of the school year because we get no breaks and the month right before we really gear up for end of level tests.  Really, it's the last month that we can teach everything that needs to be taught before we start testing and preparing for the tests.  When I try to help my students and I see that anything I try to do so they can get help and get better isn't working, I tend to feel bad.  I feel incompetent as a teacher.  Even more so, I feel bad for the students that continually lag behind in every subject even after teachers have put in extra time with them.  When will they get it? Will they ever get it? How will this effect their life? Well, I'm not going to worry about that right now because SPRING BREAK HAS ARRIVED!  I really need this because as the song says, "You'll lose the blues in CHICAGO."