Teaching - A Love/Hate Relationship

I love teaching my creative writing class this year. I have a wonderful group of eleventh and twelfth graders, some of whom sincerely enjoy writing, others who are "along for the ride" because they need an elective credit. But now at the end of the second week of school, they are all playing along with my creative games, and seem to be enjoying them. It gives me a chance to talk about writing, and encourage other people to write.
Writing to me is not just a way to someday make enough money to quit teaching (although that would be nice), it is therapy, a creative outlet, a way to fill time when I am alone, a way to allow my imagination full rein. And all I need is a notebook and a pen.
I have kept a journal for almost twenty years, which amazes my students, and amazes me sometimes too. And although I don't look back at them often enough, the act of writing has been immensely valuable to me over the years. It is this "act of writing" that I am trying to instill in my students.
Now comes the "hate" part. I don't use the word "hate" very often, but I HATE grading the mountains of homework and classwork from my three ninth grade English classes. After spending several hours of my precious Saturday yesterday grading papers and entering the grades into the computer, I went for a walk -- a fail-proof way to come up with creative ideas.
I have a plan. I won't bore the non-teacher readers with the details, and I rather want to give it a try before I share my ideas anyway. But I am taking back my time. The hours I spend grading papers is not equivalent to how good a teacher I am, or how excellent an education my students receive.