Ryan's Writes #2: Bruised but building stamina

I sat in the classroom today reading my novel for homework - Earnest Hemingway's "In Our Time". I was quite enraptured by the short stories so I was slightly irritated whenever my mentor teacher decided to give me input about the class or her teaching strategy...you know, the stuff I'm supposed to be listening to. In those brief moments when I was able to pull myself out of the little worlds I was reading about, I noticed the students struggling to focus on the page. I chuckled to myself thinking "these kids are so weak they can't finish a 3-page short story". Students were tasked with reading "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut and answering the Key Idea prompts in the margins of their SpringBoard workbooks. I read the story quickly to get a gist of the assignment and was frustrated that many students failed to make headway at all in reading much less providing intelligent responses to the prompts. I sighed to myself as I watched the teacher pass out the results of the "Discovery Education" assessment they took last week, most of which carried the "below standard" result for the student. "These kids just don't have the stamina to read"

Fast forward to later that afternoon. I just get home from tutoring. I want to play Destiny so bad. I start reading the final chapters of "In Our Time". Can't focus. Keep getting distracted by brothers watching RWBY. I find myself having to reread pages because all I've done is scan them with my eyes and not my brain. I'm falling asleep. I choose to play Destiny for a while...

Now it's almost 1am. I'm supposed to have read Stephen King's "On Writing" and have a report on it by 1pm tomorrow. My progress is laughable. Instead, I've watched an episode of Naruto and caught up on my webcomics. I'm reminded of my students whom I have criticized for not being able to hold their attention on an assignment. How can I teach them if I can't control myself. If anything, I should be able to at least model the way for them. BS'ing last minute is not the way any professional should be.

At the very least, I have completed day two of my challenge. Cheers!