Another Observation

I'm gonna figure out how to categorize posts...because I want to make an entire section dedicated to what I hear and see on the T. But nonetheless...I just rode it back from school and was watching a young teacher man grading papers...it looked like a quiz...but depending on what age he teaches...it could have been a test. Who knows...but as I watched...I found that I was looking at schooling in an entirely different way...from the teacher's perspective. Bear with me...I'm not an idiot...I've thought about this before...but it was different this time. 

As he graded the quiz/tests whatever they were...he got so visibly upset when the answers were wrong. Here is the scene....me...12 year old looking girl with a 12 year old looking outfit on carrying a 12 year old looking backpack standing in the corner of the T...trying not to fall down as it jerked along the tracks....BLATANTLY staring at this teacher man...I decided that he's probably 25 years old.... as he graded these papers. Teacher man...holding his red pen (you know he's always wanted the chance to have that red pen...we all have) and nodding his head in the most outwardly disappointed way that I've ever seen...yet still flying through the grading process. 

Flashback to me...in school...for some reason I was thinking back to Mr. Chellman's history class because they were the worst tests ever and I remembered that feeling that I got whenever I took a test and then got it back...ew..it still makes me sick to my stomach. And as I watched this guy....I pictured Mr. Chellman doing the same thing....rushing through this test that this little kid probably thought of as the MOST IMPORTANT thing in his or her life at that moment...but for him it was just another assessment of his OWN work as a teacher. I was always afraid that the teacher was disappointed in me when I did badly...but I saw it a completely different way today...this young teacher guy was so utterly disappointed in himself I think. You always hear teachers say that they want you to do well...blah blah blah...it never seemed true because I always figured they just set me up to fail but this guy obviously saw these bad grades as a reflection on himself. To the student...the student failed. To the teacher...the teacher failed. There is no easy side to education...(except my professor at grad school...her life is easy...don't get me wrong... and she's gonna take credit for all of us working our butts off but...that's beside the point)

Its just weird that I've never really thought about it this way....and also...the fact that this guy was grading on his way home from work...kids spend their ENTIRE LIFE studying and working to impress these teachers and for the teachers themselves...it CAN'T be their life because they're adults...they have to go home and take care of their family or work another job or pay bills or make sure their own kids aren't failing out of school...but I also think that adults/teachers so easily forget what it was like to take that test or to study for that quiz and only see it as work. But I bet you his students that failed that quiz/test that he was grading today....out of them at least ONE will remember it like I remember Mr. Chellman's tests...