I hate it when you're cute

I really, really enjoy teaching yoga. I really, really enjoy being a teacher, period.

I always thought my life was meant to heal others, but I think now I've found my true voice and teaching is my thing. I love learning. I love academia. I love explaining things to people, making it easier for them to understand. In a way, teaching does heal others, and its helped me heal myself.

I am so tempted to drop out of school right now, get a work permit, and just support myself being a full time yoga teacher. It's possible, as they're in demand and get paid handsomely, and then there's the perks, like getting three month long paid teaching vacations in Thailand and Costa Rica. However, I am scared that at 35, I might decide that this isn't what I want to do anymore, and going back to university then would suck balls. I only have one year left, so I figure since I've come this far, I might as well finish, right?

Then see if I can get into grad school anywhere for music therapy. Even if that's what I want to do.

Maybe I'll do a master's in music education. I don't know.

I would love to teach at the university level, however I don't know if I'd like that, especially with some of the professors I've had. In my social psychology class and child development class, the profs are decent lecturers but the class average is 50%. Thats a D. I am getting a 67% in social psych (a high C) and a 70% in child developmenr (a B-). Both profs have told me I have one of the highest grades in the course.

This rings a few alarms for me. They say its normal, but really, how normal is it when most of your class is almost failing? Why don't you spend time evaluating your teaching methods since its clear your students aren't understanding the material? Or better yet, how come you're not maybe reevaluating your tests since they obviously aren't a valid way of measuring student's progress? For example: my child development test covered chapters 1-6. It was about 275 pages worth of material. There were 35 questions. On 275 pages of material. When we asked our prof to tell us what to study, her response was we needed to know everything.

I'd almost rather take a 90 question exam, since it would more accurately reflect the amount of pages we had to read and study. When I studied for the first exam, I studied broad concepts and repeated themes of child development, since 35 questions must mean it would be very broad and general. Nope. It asked for very specific models of studies, effects, etc. Not the well known theories of development from Piaget and Bronfenbrenner, but of psychologists who have contributed very little to the developmental field.

I tried to voice my opinion for myself and the class when we had an open discussion regarding the marks received, but she just completely waived her hand and dismissed it, citing that we all just needed to "study harder". How can you call yourself a teacher and do that? How can you not care that your students are receiving low grades? Why don't you think that this reflects your teaching skills, and not our study habits? I am just so exacerbated and fed up with professors who don't fucking care! And to wave off any suggestions that we might have and continuously defend yourself? Why even bother having an open discussion or a debriefing, if all you're going to do is defend yourself and not work to bring about change?

I'm not stupid by any means. I know my shit. I want my test grades to reflect the fact that I know my shit. I want to get into grad school. I bust my ass and end up not doing as well as I'd hoped. Getting the highest mark in the class is of little comfort to me when that mark is a 67% or a 70%, because that still means a C or B will show up on my progress report, and I will have to do yet more explaining to professors during my interview when I apply for grad school.

Im trying to think of what else I can do to pass and get better marks. I seriously can't "study harder" any more than I am doing now.

Colour me jaded.