Burned out and broken down

I flipped out in one of my classes last week. At the beginning of class, we were discussing "two things I enjoyed about writing the curriculum" and "two concerns I have after writing the curriculum." Now that I think about it, it may not have been a forum for registering complaints (once again) about the disorganization of these three classes working together, but at the time I thought we were getting an arena to air these issues. I became more and more upset the longer we sat there not saying what we were all thinking, so finally I spoke up. The instructor became very defensive, so the exchanges escalated rapidly. At one point, she indicated that she didn't realize some of us needed help writing lesson plans (which is funny, considering some of us have never taught elementary grades or have never taught at all and are therefore in a teacher education program), so we were going to spend part of class that day talking about how to write a lesson plan. I was so agitated that I said, "After we've already written all of them," to which some of my classmates snickered, in accord with the comedy of the situation.

After class, one of my classmates said, holding the handout about how to write a lesson plan, "I guess I'll take this home and wipe my butt with it, now that I've already broken my head and finished writing the lesson plans."

After cutting short the bitch session at the beginning of class, the instructor huffily went on to the next thing on the agenda. I felt upset, unable to calm down, and my eyes teared up. I went to the bathroom to cry and regain composure, thinking I'd only take a few minutes, but I was there for about half an hour. I sat in the stall crying, because I was angry with myself for getting so worked up and aggressively confrontational in class. I started to think, how can I be an elementary school teacher in a public school if I can't even handle stupid classes here? This quickly deteriorated into thoughts of dropping out of the program and moving to Albuquerque and searching for a whole other career field altogether.

I ended up going to my office and crying and talking to Gina, one of the full-time lecturers who has her office next to my desk. She was very helpful, because she said she gets that way, too; that she bottles stuff up until it sort of bursts out of her. I went back at the end of class to get my stuff, and I meant to talk to the instructor, but by the time my classmates had finished consoling me, she was gone.

Three days later I met with her. We spoke for over an hour, making very little progress. She was still defensive and would not apologize or admit to any mistakes; the major mistake I kept bringing up was that she had said at the beginning of the course that we would only be responsible for two lessons (math and science), and then two weeks before the due date, she says we were responsible for three (adding social studies). Never mind that we didn't even discuss social studies in our classes. She never acknowledged that this was a mistake. Instead, I think she hoped her silence on the issue means that she had always meant to have us do three lessons.

She kept asking me how a couple of classes (I ratted on the worst two I've had this year) has ruined my experience at this institution. I didn't know how to answer her; basically, I didn't think I should have to put up with lousy teaching at a college that purports to be prestigious, one of the best in the country. I do not want to spend 30 minutes of every class trying to decode a syllabus that even the instructor does not understand (which was the case last semester, in a class whose regular instructor was on sabbatical), or be spoken down to as if we were math dunces in our math class (because our instructor regularly says, "You don't know how to do that because you don't understand the math concept! Only the Asian students know how to do that!").

Anyway, long story short, there are some fights you just can't win. I consulted my therapist about the situation, and she pointed out that I was upset because my opinions were not validated by my instructor, and they probably won't be, at least not any time soon. What can I reasonably expect from my instructors, then? Pretty much nothing. I spoke to my therapist again today about it, explaining that I've decided not to expend the energy necessary to fight this by myself (following her suggestions the week before), and outlining plans to speak with my classmates at some point in order to organize a formal meeting with the program head, in which I am not the only one expressing dissatisfaction. That will take time and careful, level-headed planning, so I'm tabling the issue for now.

In other news, I've been going crazy at work helping with a function that is taking place tonight. The program head received an award at the conference for social/industrial/organizational psychology, and one of the professors in our program organized a big party to celebrate. I helped with invitations, RSVPs, and this week the name tags, which took a long time. I just got back from the party--cocktails (which I needed; hooray for open bar!), dinner, dessert and toasts, which probably went on a very long time--and it was going well when I decided to skip out. The professors I helped were all very appreciative, which made me happy, and some of the doctoral students also expressed gratitude for the work I've been doing. It felt good.

Weekend outlook: revise the stupid math lesson, read some classmates' papers that I was supposed to read last week, clean the apartment, yoga, yoga, and more yoga, to counter all the tension of the past few weeks.

I cannot wait for this semester to be over! I realized, when I was having that breakdown in class last week, that I haven't had a real vacation in a long time. At Christmas I had a week, and for spring break I got one whole day off. It's time for real relaxation! I'm planning to go to Guatemala for two weeks in July, to take Spanish courses. I'm thinking, however, that it might be a good idea to just do a week of Spanish courses and then travel/relax for the second week, though it's never really very relaxing to travel around. I have time to plan, though. Julia Oliver and I might take a little trip to the Dominican Republic, as well (also for Spanish courses). Hooray for the summer!

Oh, and I got myself an ipod, finally. It was a treat to myself once I filed my tax returns. Hooray for tax refunds!