Thoughts on my Classroom

So it’s been three months. Almost to the day. Three months is the time it takes, according to Teach for India, to get your feet wet, your classroom under control, your structures in place. It’s the time it takes for you to gain confidence as a teacher, for your students to acclimate and begin to trust you. It is the time after which, ideally speaking, we have the chance to really maximize impact and begin setting our students on path-changing learning.

It’s hard to remember that key word: begin. It is too easy to lose energy, confidence, and patience when I don’t see my kids already changing the paths that they’re on. It’s so easy to freak out when kids aren’t reading yet, when kids’ reading levels aren’t going up by the half a year they’re supposed to (though, to be fair, I have no data on that, I’m just being pessimistic). And I’ve been doing both of those things. Losing energy, freaking out, and all around just being not as motivated and optimistic as these kids deserve. So… what do I do about it?