Compassion Fatigue

My husband and I are both high school teachers. He teaches Keyboarding/Office Systems and Accounting. I teach English. We spend most of our commute letting (mostly) go of student issues. We carry those confrontations longer than most would think. Did we handle it the clearest way possible? Are we justified in being angry at the child in question? Is it as bizarre as we initially thought, that the child overreacted in that situation? When we have a parent send a juicy rationalization our way, are we justified in being bemused and entertained?

I understand the concern generated from rants about how we should not wish destruction upon our students even when they are less than cooperative. But here’s why we rant on blogs: We cannot rant to students or parents without risking censure. I have had students tell me what a horrible teacher they think I am and that my class is stupid. Yet I cannot tell them, in anger or otherwise, what I think of them – because it wouldn’t be helpful or professional. I have had parents use profanity-laced excuses why their darling angel only threw a chair across the room because I did not give their child my full attention at the expense of the other 35 students in class.

When we went open-eyed and admittedly idealistic into education, we did so thinking that we would teach mostly students who behaved the way we behaved in high school. But in high school in 1984, there were no cell phones or MP3 players or online grades or frequent threats of lawsuit or parents informing the school that their darling child has “intrusive impulsive disorder” – which doesn’t exist, although the student in question behaves as if it did exist and she was the poster child. We thought we would become teachers to inspire students to become life-long learners. I thought I would create poets, and novelists, and normal people who had a heightened sense of the power of words. My husband was going to give his students the knowledge that we didn't access as kids - personal finance, computer skills, and the time-saving efficient uses of computers.

So we have 180 students on the first day of school, and we find out quickly that every class has several loud, vocal students who you love to death but find no value in your class. Most students aren't malicious - a few are - but most don't realize that their behavior may be funny to their peers, but it makes my job harder everyday. Endless bathroom passes - spending more time avoiding work than it would take to complete the assignment in the first place.

So forgive us the moments where we vent our frustration and rage – we do so in the blogosphere so we don’t vent on top of our students heads…

The rants in question, even the violent ones, are nothing more than a manifestation of my own pseudo-invented disorder – Compassion Fatigue.