Motivated by a Lack of Motivation

We're beginning day three of our stay at my sister's house in Tennessee. We've had a very nice time so far. Once we arrived Monday night, we all sat around the living room and had our second Christmas. Leo is finally understanding the concept that there are more toys underneath all those odd, paper-wrapped, blobby objects. He seemed content enough to open a toy and start playing with it, so it was difficult to get him to move onto the next one. But just watching the scene, I couldn't help but think how unfortunate it is that we have to train him to not be content enough with that one toy to stay with it. He has to want more. Does he?

Seems to me that's a concept somewhere around the core of my self-diagnosed neurosis. Though the time to relax with everyone has been nice, my mind doesn't know how to relax. I've second-guessed, doubted, and tried reworking my rough plans for after graduation at least ten times since I got here. Good Lord, I have a whole semester of doing this ahead. And probably several freaking-out-don't-know-what-to-do blog posts, so here is my apology in advance for that. I'm caught in that place where I know it's not all about me and my choices and my desires and la-de-da, but then I also know I can't just sit around and watch the world happen around me either. This is the time in my life that I have to be proactive about everything I pursue. I suppose in those lovely days of being married and settled and what-not, a routine life develops. There is no life right now for me to even consider making a routine out of unless I want to sit on my parents' couch for ten years (I don't and I can't). So now I sit before doors 1, 2, and 3, too terrified to even touch the doorknob of any.

And as far as "rough plans" go, I'm currently looking at the New Teacher Project (TNTP), which was started by a girl who did Teach For America and decided to further the cause beyond the teach-for-two-years framework of Teach For America. TNTP makes a more direct effort at training teachers for careers and training them to be effective in high-need schools. The only way I think I qualify for this program is that I want the sort of change they want just as badly as they do. There's no guarantee I'd actually be an effective teacher. I'm a pretty terrible student myself, and I can't say I really care that much about academics. I like math because it's fun. I don't expect to go to a school and say, "Hey, see? This is fun!" and have everyone rigorously differentiating and integrating everything and its mother because I've shown them the light and the light is fun. If anything, I understand why they won't cooperate and just get the assignment done or bother studying for the test. I hated doing that, too, kid. No one ever lit my fire. I had who I imagine is one of the best math teachers in at least all of Virginia for my junior and senior years of high school, and I do strongly believe he's the reason I still loved math when I walked across the commencement stage. But I've seen his grief and his sorrow over the students who don't care and don't get it. I see that he is fueled by his ideal students, the students like me who get it and love it. He's in the dumps when he's lost in a swarm of unmotivated students.

And he is the one who is convinced that I need to be a math teacher. It all started one day in calculus my senior year when we were going over a challenging homework problem. He had the problem up on the board and random people were throwing out suggestions of how to start the problem and where to go with it. I sat and watched and noticed the guy next to me struggling with even the most basic of concepts we were discussing, so I turned to him to explain enough to get him caught up to where we were. Then, my teacher hushed all of the not-quite-right suggestions and asked me specifically how to do the problem. So I told him, and I explained why I did what I did. By chance, I was right (I wasn't always right), and that's when he said, "You need to be a math teacher." For the first time. I fought it long and hard, and I used my severe lack of motivation in college as an excuse still for not teaching. I hate school. I hate tests. I hate homework. Why on earth would I go into a classroom and expect my own students to be interested in doing these things? Do I really have to drag them along like my professors did for me in college? Will they shy away from me like I do with my professors because I can feel the shame of my "C-" in their classes when I look at their faces?

College isn't for me, but I did it. So here I stand with my barely respectable GPA thanks to all of my non-math classes, wondering if I should teach a bunch of unmotivated students like me. Maybe so. God will tell.