Never Enough

An recent article about teaching from the Huffington Post discusses what the author feels is the hardest part about the profession that no one ever mentions. Writes author Peter Greene:

The hard part of teaching is coming to grips with this:

There is never enough.

There is never enough time. There are never enough resources. There is never enough you.

As a teacher, you can see what a perfect job in your classroom would look like. You know all the assignments you should be giving. You know all the feedback you should be providing your students. You know all the individual crafting that should provide for each individual's instruction. You know all the material you should be covering. You know all the ways in which, when the teachable moment emerges (unannounced as always), you can greet it with a smile and drop everything to make it grow and blossom.

You know all this, but you can also do the math. 110 papers about the view of death in American Romantic writing times 15 minutes to respond with thoughtful written comments equals -- wait! what?! That CAN'T be right! Plus quizzes to assess where we are in the grammar unit in order to design a new remedial unit before we craft the final test on that unit (five minutes each to grade). And that was before Chris made that comment about Poe that offered us a perfect chance to talk about the gothic influences, and then Alex and Pat started a great discussion of gothic influences today. And I know that if my students are really going to get good at writing, they should be composing something at least once a week. And if I am going to prepare my students for life in the real world, I need to have one of my own to be credible.

And the result? A perpetual reality dominated by this:

But every day is still educational triage. You will pick and choose your battles, and you will always be at best bothered, at worst haunted, by the things you know you should have done but didn't.

My first reaction to the article was an easy and comfortable agreement. It's not a begrudging or a "woe-is-me!" emphatic head-bobbing to secure my martyrdom; rather, it's a simple fact of the profession that I and others face every day. If you're not wondering what else you should be doing, you're probably not doing it right.

With a little time to think, however, I realized teachers should be careful to see themselves in an exclusive category when it comes to performing in this "triage" environment.

Most parents feel this every day. Blessed to be home with my children all day during the summer, I find the extra time produces more expectations and guilt, not less. I want my daughters to learn how to play and use their imagination outside of an officially scheduled program run by some saintly librarian, art teacher, or myself; they need their space to play. Then I worry I'm not spending enough direct contact hours, down on my hands and knees, getting dirty with them. There are scores of summer writing and math and reading worksheets that should be done, hundreds of books, and art projects galore. But shouldn't they be outside, grass-stained and streaked with sidewalk-chalk dust? We need to work on bike riding, on swimming, on socializing in the neighborhood. At some point they need to pick up their trail of destruction, maintain some semblance of hygiene, and learn to be a responsible, contributing member of the household team. And don't forget Candyland. Because I am home, I decide what we will do and what we won't. And the benefit of the responsibility comes with the burden of always leaving something out.

The same is true in my personal life. What do I cut to fit the rest in? Exercise? Reading? Friends? General household chores? Walking the dog? Whatever good activity I choose to engage in, I'm also choosing not to engage in a different good thing. It all should be done; it can't all be done.

No matter how much I write or work on the craft of writing, I feel behind. The house is clean, in places, but never totally and completely. The yard looks good, but not perfect. I called this friend, but haven't contacted that one in months. And wasn't I going to paint the porch this summer?

This feeling seems universal probably because it is. You and I will never be enough. For anything. For try as we might, there will never be enough hours, enough energy, enough will, or enough goodness. Good intentions? Yes. We have plenty of those. But we are not God.

And that's the point. We should feel like we can't do it, because it's true. It reveals our great dependence. I've always had a feeling, or perhaps a hope, that the day would arrive when I finally "got there." Where, I don't know, but the destination would include finally having figured it all out - prayer, parenting, proper fitness, professional glory and accomplishment, personal fulfillment, and the perfect family led by a father and husband with all the right answers. That day will never come.

My choice, therefore, is to see God in all that I do, and rest in the knowledge that I belong to Him who is all-sufficient; or I can try to do it all, be all, accomplish all, for me and by me, never ever being quite enough.

For you and for me, teachers and non-teachers, parents and non-parents, we most likely will share some daily form of what Greene describes in the article. Expect it, work hard in it, and then accept it. You are not enough on your own. And you weren't created to be.