Frustration

Sometimes I wonder about people.

I hate the feeling that I get sometimes about my students....much as I imagine a parent finds herself horrified at the thoughts she might have about her child on a particularly exasperating day. I hate that I think about "when I was in school," as if it mattered. "When I was in school, I never talked back to a teacher!" "When I was in school, I always showed up to class prepared!" --which is mostly true. I may have skipped out on or only skimmed a required reading, but if something was due, by golly, I had it ready to turn in.

But that's how I feel today. I don't understand how, after I've repeated myself time after time, after I've distributed and discussed the class syllabus, which has all the dates for things that are due in bold, that I can still receive the blank stares and the remarkably guiltless deadpan faces.

It makes me wonder about the world, it really does. I mean, I often wonder about the world, but stuff like this really gets under my skin. I look at some of the younger people I know, and it just really seems as though it's a different world to them than it was for me. And I suppose in many ways, it is.

And maybe it has to do with the nature of the school that I attended, versus the nature of the school I now teach at. I attended a private, traditional, 4-year liberal arts college. Davenport is kind of a hodge-podge of certification programs, 2-year Associates degrees, 4-year bachelors degrees, and some graduate level studies as well. At Albion, everyone was a full time student; here, not so many. In fact, I would argue most people are just taking a class or two here and there, picking away at the degree of their choice over time. Maybe that equates to a different atmosphere, a different attitude, about what we're doing here. I just don't know.

I do know that I'm frustrated, and want very much to escape to my car and go home.