Those who can't

There's an old saying:  "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach."

It's a terrible saying that is meant to insult teachers (particularly, I suppose, university and trade teachers).

I've often wondered, though, where does that leave the people who can't teach?  What do they do?

I had my first "proper" teaching day at prac today, and it sucked.  I was so terrible I even surprised myself - and, quite frankly, I usually expect to be terrible, so I'm not normally surprised to found out I am.

I was over prepared and underprepared at the same time (no mean feat), and I was also just plain awful.  I was boring.  I gave the students work that veered wildly between "too easy" and "too confusing".  I had no sense of where I was with the crowd, and I could see all the horrible things I was doing as I was doing them...  But couldn't catch myself.  I just kept grinding downhill, and taking those poor students with me.

There are two things about myself that I know to be equally true:
1.  I'm a frickin' genius.
2.  I'm the thickest of dunces.

When I'm in the zone, and on a role, you can't stop me.  I can solve any problem.  I can handle any situation.  I just sit there and say to myself "Well, Sharon, you're a frickin' genius, how do we make this better?" and a few minutes (heck, sometimes just a few seconds) of frenzied thinking reveals a solution that was worth the arrogance.  Sometimes I can come up with something instantly.  Sometimes I can say "leave it with me", and by the next day I'll have an answer that works.  I have this power.

But I also hit these points where all I can do is make mistakes and repeat them.  I'll say to myself, "well, Sharon, you're a frickin' genius, how do we make this better", and from deep inside something in me says "I got nothin'.  Just keep doing that thing that isn't working and hope it gets better."  When I'm a dunce, I'm a serious dunce.  I can't even read the situation, let alone handle it.  It may take me five years to realise what's actually going on. (No, seriously.  On more than one occasion I've had the "Oh, that's what she said" moments several years after the event).

And then I'm standing there, feeling completely useless while part of me screams "make it better!  Make it better!" and the rest of me screams back: "I don't know how!  I don't know how!"

I had a large portion of those moments when I was a high school teacher.  I'm having them again, now.

Yesterday, because I didn't have any classes in the morning, they got me to catalogue some resources for them.  I solved six problems before lunch.  Yesterday, I was a genius.

Today I was teaching, and I feel like I'm drowning in my own incompetence.

If this prac has taught me one thing, it's this:  I really like being a librarian.

Actually, I already knew that.  I just thought I might also like being an ESL teacher.  I think, now, I can safely say I don't like being any kind of teacher.  It makes me feel stupid and useless.

Maybe "those who can't teach should stop trying to kid themselves" should be the other part of that saying.