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Taking up physics at university while still working was done with two goals in mind:
1) Gain a method in teaching physics to make me more useful and employable in a school setting
2) Provide me with an intellectual challenge
While part 2 is definitely happening, it's had one unfortunate side effect: It's made me realise just how little intellectual stimulation I've had over the past 3-ish years. I'm using brain muscles that I forgot that I had, and it feels REALLY GOOD. But it's highlighted my dissatisfaction with my job. So far, the only thing that I feel has been "challenged" in this profession is my patience.
Teaching kids who don't give a damn is extremely unsatisfying, and I've had this problem since my first year out, when I encountered year 10 kids who insisted they "just want a formula" for the total surface area of every concievable 3D shape. No matter how much I tried to explain that they really should just find the surfaces, find the areas and add them up, they continued to repeat "I just want a formula". Had I been writing the exam, I'd have put in a doosey of a shape just to mess with them.
But this is the kind of attitude I'm fed up with. They don't want to understand, they just want the tricks to get them through the test and then they want to forget they'd ever done the topic. Until they have to do it again the following year.
I'm tired of dealing with kids who, in year 8, don't know ANY of their times tables except the 2s (along with the 5s, if you're lucky), and who don't realise (after having had it explained about a dozen times) that you can cancel the zeros when doing something like 500/1000. They don't even really understand that it's division. They can tell me that the line in the middle means "divide by", but only when I prompt them. It just doesn't occur to them on their own because they don't really "get" fractions, and they don't really seem to care to. They just want to know the "trick".
I'm tired of it. And that's not even mentioning the behavioural shit I have to deal with on a daily basis, and it's always the same shit from the same kids.
I may end up teaching year 11 maths next year which would mean kids who are interested, and hopefully that will be challenging enough (and hopefully the maths will be challenging enough), but at this stage I feel as though I'm quickly losing my passion for teaching and it seems mainly to be due to teaching dumb shits in years 7-10.
I'm seriously longing for academia. I want to go into research. I want the grades to go into research. But first I need that physics major, and that would require taking considerable time off. So all this may have to wait a number of years. I just feel like I need something to change in a big way because I'm starting to really dislike what I have to do every. Single. Fucking. Day. And that's not a good thing.
1) Gain a method in teaching physics to make me more useful and employable in a school setting
2) Provide me with an intellectual challenge
While part 2 is definitely happening, it's had one unfortunate side effect: It's made me realise just how little intellectual stimulation I've had over the past 3-ish years. I'm using brain muscles that I forgot that I had, and it feels REALLY GOOD. But it's highlighted my dissatisfaction with my job. So far, the only thing that I feel has been "challenged" in this profession is my patience.
Teaching kids who don't give a damn is extremely unsatisfying, and I've had this problem since my first year out, when I encountered year 10 kids who insisted they "just want a formula" for the total surface area of every concievable 3D shape. No matter how much I tried to explain that they really should just find the surfaces, find the areas and add them up, they continued to repeat "I just want a formula". Had I been writing the exam, I'd have put in a doosey of a shape just to mess with them.
But this is the kind of attitude I'm fed up with. They don't want to understand, they just want the tricks to get them through the test and then they want to forget they'd ever done the topic. Until they have to do it again the following year.
I'm tired of dealing with kids who, in year 8, don't know ANY of their times tables except the 2s (along with the 5s, if you're lucky), and who don't realise (after having had it explained about a dozen times) that you can cancel the zeros when doing something like 500/1000. They don't even really understand that it's division. They can tell me that the line in the middle means "divide by", but only when I prompt them. It just doesn't occur to them on their own because they don't really "get" fractions, and they don't really seem to care to. They just want to know the "trick".
I'm tired of it. And that's not even mentioning the behavioural shit I have to deal with on a daily basis, and it's always the same shit from the same kids.
I may end up teaching year 11 maths next year which would mean kids who are interested, and hopefully that will be challenging enough (and hopefully the maths will be challenging enough), but at this stage I feel as though I'm quickly losing my passion for teaching and it seems mainly to be due to teaching dumb shits in years 7-10.
I'm seriously longing for academia. I want to go into research. I want the grades to go into research. But first I need that physics major, and that would require taking considerable time off. So all this may have to wait a number of years. I just feel like I need something to change in a big way because I'm starting to really dislike what I have to do every. Single. Fucking. Day. And that's not a good thing.
