Overcoming Fears

"I can't do this! I've seriously tried, but nothing is coming to me. I hate writing, please don't make me go back tomorrow. Everyone is so much better than I." These are words that a parent would probably hear from their young child after being assigned a writing assignment from their teacher. A teacher that they are convinced wants to ruin their life. As an LA teacher, which means I teach reading and try to fit in writing, some would ask me if these were the complaints from one of my student's parent after listening to their child for hours cry about how I assigned them a writing assignment. Unforutnately, these are the words of a 27 year old adult. Okay, I admit these are my own complaints, that my husband had to listen to for two weeks! Through my district I was required to take a two week writing workshop on how to encourage writing in my classroom. I thought, "This is going to be great! I'm going to get so much out of this for my students. Finally I won't have to feel as though I'm pulling out my students' teeth when asking them to write." Little did I know that we would go through this process, as though we were our students. Thus allowing us to get their side of the story and how they feel. In the two weeks we were required to write something, go through the writing process like a student, share it with the group, and then have it published for the whole district to read it if they would like to. The majority of the class were English teachers, they only teach writing and grammar, who seemed to be able to do this in their sleep. They knew all the types of vivid verbs to add, the many ways to start a paper, the paper no longer has to be 5 paragraphs (Intro, three good body papragraphs, and then the conclusion), appositives, absolutes, adjectives (Did you know that they don't have to come before the noun?), and finally participles and something about them dangling. You can imagine my horror! Through many temper tantrums, a whole notebook, and even a few threats from my husband, I got through the process and wrote a piece. I finally realized the horror that my students go through and why I was getting so frustrated with them not reaching their potential. I'm convinced that I wasn't allowing them to. They saw my fear/lack of interest in it and so they picked up on it. I've made it a goal of mine this year to overcome this fear, not only for myself but also for my students. They deserve it!