Battling Disillusion

I haven't updated this blog since June, though I have done much written reflection about the things I've read and my experiences with teaching. Every potential post stays in draft mode or in my composition notebook. Without sounding too dramatic, the reason for my lack of writing is that I have just felt so incredibly disillusioned with academia and formal education that it has been difficult for me to write. Sitting through classes and discussing theory has become damn near intolerable. I see truth in the things I read, but I recently realized how much I rely on theory rather than practice or experience. The more I reflect on learning, the more I come to understand that authentic learning happens through practice. I do not currently feel like I am able to practice.

Yesterday in my Pedagogy, Curriculum, & Assessment course, Amanda Thein, co author of  Teaching To Exceed The English Language Arts Common Core State Standards: A Literacy Practices Approach For 6-12 Classrooms, skyped my class to discuss the book. When speaking about formative assessment, she said that assessment should often be a meta-cognitive activity. As a teacher,  you should identify your own personal teaching goals (as well as the goals of your students) when assessing how well your learning community is learning. I found a lot of truth in this idea, and so I set out to attempt to write out my overall goals for teaching ELA in a public school classroom. My first overarching goal for teaching ELA is to empower students with their own literacy. I want my students to understand and use their voice. I want to be and help create agents of change within our society. Great idea, yeah? Except I'm a big ol' hypocrite. A phony. A sham. I dazzle you with a fancy phrase like "agents of change" and yet I do nothing to use my own voice and make changes within my own community. I have turned into exactly what I feared: I let go of my identity and isolated myself in academia. I stopped focusing on my own development as person that exists in a real world that deals with real issues. I let these abstract ideas stew in my brain and do nothing to bring them into the world with action.  I have sat in circles in a college classroom and spoke about connecting community and classrooms and yet I have not even begun to take the small steps to connect with the people in my own community. I cannot be a teacher that speaks about using literacy to affect the world if I do not do that myself.

Even worse, I have let the pressures of social norms and academic standing take hold of myself and my writing. I no longer feel like I own myself, my writing, or my own education. I think I may have accidentally fallen into a system I hate, and I'm not sure how to jump out. I do not want to be a woman that shields her true self in order to maintain her position in society. I want to challenge social norms! I want to stand up and be unafraid to share ideas even if I'm wearing a Mrs. Frizzle rainbow skirt or have purple hair. Right now I feel as though I am help back by anxiety about how my less-than-conservative identity will be received. I have compromised aspects of myself in order to fit into academia. A few days ago while writing log reflections about my classroom time, I wrote about an episode in which a student questioned my authority as a teacher because of my age. When searching for solutions to this, I actually wrote down "dressing more maturely and asserting myself as an authority figure." Who am I? Why have I become like this?

I think my main issue is that my college classrooms seem so very isolated from the rest of the world. I have begun to gauge my intelligence based on my school performance (grades) rather than HOW I have used what I have learned. In fact, I am so preoccupied with my school performance that it has become my ONLY performance in the world. I am gauging success based on a product (a degree/grades) rather than the learning process and the connections I make within the world using literacy. At some point, I began boxing myself into the classroom and stopped making direct connections between the classroom and the rest of society. 

I am desperately trying to find my place within the school system, but I question how I feel about the amount of teacher agency I am willing to sacrifice to fit into this system. I am in now way abandoning teaching, but I think that perhaps I need to step back and reexamine my goals and expectations of becoming a certified teacher in Louisiana. Can there be a space in a schools in which I can be myself as well as an effective teacher? I feel like I am threatening the authenticity of learning because I am censoring my personality and conforming to social norms. I see a huge disconnect between my education and my life. 

I think all of this might be calling for a break from the academic life. I am contemplating taking a year to focus on experience and reexamine my reasons for attending college. If my primary motivation is to get a degree and make money and work, I'm doing this wrong. 

I am losing the joy of discovering knowledge and I can't pin point where I went wrong. As I told my husband earlier, I feel as though I got onto a bus to happy passion town but somewhere along the way I got off at a stop and got on the wrong bus. I think I might be in the right area, but this bus just isn't cutting it for me. I need to find the right bus. 

Edit 10/14/14

So after posting this, I had some really great conversations with other pre-service teachers, experienced teachers, and one super fantastic awesome great convo with my college adviser. I realized that a lot of the issues I am having stem from my realization that I am not making meaningful connections to the people around me. I have been stepping back and avoiding "the work" of friendships. The more experiences I have in English Amped, the more I come to understand that there is real power in physically being present with other people and sharing stories. Right now I am an not actively engaging. I don't know nor understand many of the issues members of my community face. I really have isolated myself. That being said, I am acknowledging my problems and I am finding options for growing and developing this part of myself. I'm looking into some volunteer organizations around Baton Rouge and I'm feeling optimistic about my future in education. Right now, I think that I need to trust that I am expert in my own life, and that I should follow my heart about exploring where my place is within the education system. I don't want to be another teacher that propagates the cycles in which our society is stuck. I also don't want to be a teacher that emphasizes the power of language, but doesn't use that power herself. I need to take a step out of my comfort zone as a student. I need to get to know myself, my voice, and the people around me. If I can't at least make an effort to start to get to know these things, then what am I doing becoming a teacher?