Lucky Year Thirteen

I have never had a job for this long ever in my life.  I knew when I became a teacher it was bound to happen.  I am not the new teacher I see myself as, mainly because now I know too much.  I wish I could get that old new teacher feeling back.

I know how education changes with the government.  I know that we change the names of strategies and reuse them again years later.  I know that although we are always changing, teachers are stubborn, including me.  We all struggle with these untested strategies, one after another.  One year we care about reading, the next year bullying, the next math facts, and on and on; never focusing on one thing long enough to make any difference.

I do not have the sunny disposition I had when I walked into Room L thirteen years ago and started with only standards in hand and a hundred teenagers.  My college classes and my student teaching didn’t prepare me for the other things teaching involved. It did not prepare me for the politicians and parents and poor administrators and tattletale colleagues.  I never realized the teachers were as cliquey as the students.

I thought teaching was about inspiring the students and making them individuals. My job was to make them love reading and writing as much as I did and to prepare them to go on to high school and even college.  I am sure I did this for some, maybe not at all for others.  I hope I was able to balance all the crap from the really important part of teaching, the students.

Now I have students with spouses and children.  I have Princeton graduates and high school drop outs.  I would love to claim all their success and failures as my own, but I doubt I had that much of an impact.  What do I even remember about my middle school teachers?  I think I know all my teachers, but I know that some are forgotten.  After twelve years of students, I have over a thousand people in the world that know my name or have some memory of me, good or bad.

Of course, I want all the memories to be positive and happy with a rosy finish, but I know that it doesn’t matter.  If I made someone happy, I made someone else cringed.  If I inspired someone to use a little more effort, I made someone else feel trapped enough to cheat.  If I made someone laugh, I made someone cry, and I probably laughed about it later.

As a student, I was that crying girl at school dances.  I wanted everyone to be happy, but I never wanted to apply myself until I was in college.  Now I am teaching those kids like me that cry at the drop of a hat; those kids that want friends and laughs; those kids that struggle to put forth any more effort than to get their parents off their back.  I can’t imagine how hard this task is nowadays.  I only had to deal with the television and telephone as distractions.

Still, twelve years of teaching is a amazing feat.  I find myself reminiscing about the old days, the golden days.  The days when I thought I could make a difference.  When I thought I could change everyone for the better and couldn’t understand why veterans teachers had given in to the routine of education.  I know why teachers give up now.

This has been a thankless job.  It was a great job when I had few responsibilities and hours to hang out at the school.  Now, I feel like just being at school is like being in prison.  This person that I don’t trust is bossy around another person I don’t trust, and somewhere down the ladder they are grading me as a teacher.  Neither said persons having any teaching experience.  When I didn’t realize that politicians and media controlled education, I actually thought I had a chance to inspire people.

In reality, their futures are probably already mapped out for them by the time they are teenagers.  James was already destined after years of continued support from his family and values to go to Princeton.  Poor Lisa was doomed to teenage pregnancy regardless of her new love of reading.  It would only help her if she could find time to read as a fifteen-year-old mother.  Derek never needed English, even though I drove him up the wall for a year about homework.  He tattoos people now, and the protagonist of the Where the Red Fern Grows is no longer needed.

I have to look at teaching from a different perspective.  Government looks at my test scores and improvement.  I am not sure that matters really, expect for my job security.  I wish things were different.  I wish middle school was just that.  Practice for the being an adult in a place where students can make mistakes and learn from them before high school, when everything counts.  Middle school is a time for life skills like making deadlines and managing time.  My students have a difficult with managing family, school, and personal life all at once for the very first time.  All this on top of this ever-changing world of hormones and maturity and testing limits, middle school students have it rough.  It is basically a holding place for all kids.  We are waiting for them to mature enough to tackle high school.

In reality, elementary schools introduce everything over the course of six or seven years.  Then the middle school reinforces the same exact information in two years.  Notice students learn their states and capitals in fifth and eighth grade.  Students learn nouns and verbs starting in kindergarten; this doesn’t mean they know what they are in middle school.  High school is when the real separating begins.  Students are able to branch off into their different interests that obviously have been introduced in grade school.  Some students choose to continue on to college; others make other choices.  We need all the different jobs, so we can’t all end in the same place.  The state testing proves nothing really.  The real proof is the jobs filled.  It has little to do with the hours of summer work I put into my job.  It’s about making positive experiences to make positive independent adults, regardless of whether they become professors or waiters.

I hope that in the grand scheme of things I made a difference.  Yes, James went to Princeton.  He also was sure I hated him.  Perhaps I taught him to deal with difficult people or to stand up for himself.  And Lisa just needed someone to care for her.  Her mother, at only thirty-two, left her for foster care for her next boyfriend. Maybe my support for Lisa will make her a better mother or a high school graduate.  As for Derek, ironically he could tell you all about the Red Fern; it was probably one of his most memorable classroom experiences because his teacher (me) hogtied him to demonstrate what was done in the book.  Derek loved that day at school.  He was happy the rest of that week.  Maybe I gave him at least one fun experience from school.

I could go on and on.  Sure, I don’t remember every single student, but certain ones definitely stick out for me.   That isn’t the point though.  The point is that I have made impacts of all sizes and shines.  I have done something for the world, hopefully more good than evil.  The education system doesn’t reward teachers for all accomplishments.  I didn’t get extra money to challenge James to do more or to give an ear to Lisa’s problems.  Starting this year, lucky year thirteen, I could be graded on the fact that Lisa never read on grade level and never passed English.  I could be graded on James’s top scores preventing him from educational growth, or sadly, I could not even meet someone like James because I don’t have honor students.

Although a lot of things have changed since that first year of students, my philosophy hasn’t changed all that much.  I don’t spend as much time at school, but I am still there longer than most.  The kids, regardless of color, ethnicity, location, are always the same.  Some want attention.  Some want stardom.  Some want to disappear. Some want to just pass the class for once.  Some push themselves; others prefer me to push them.  Some who won’t do anything, others that never leave school.  The nerds, the preps, the jocks, the goth or emo or whatever….kids are the same underneath.  They need love and support and someone who will listen to their needs.  Sometimes those needs do not include memorizing the Gettysburg Address or math facts.

I may not make it in teaching, but I will know that when I taught, I did it with the students in mind.  I taught skills and life lessons over nouns, hyperboles, and foreshadowing.  Year twelve was the worst.  I have positive hopes for thirteen; I plan to go down with the ship, if needed.  I just know that as I go into this year being judge by thirty minute observations and test scores that this could be the end for me.  The teacher that wants to inspire could be killed by the teacher that has to teach test skills.  I will make the best of this year and the students that I meet.  I will continue to inspire until they throw me out of the school or begin to plan my daily lessons.  I won’t conform because although test scores can be important, the students are more important, and I will NEVER forget that.

I am the PRINCIPAL! LISTEN to me!

I am the principal of PVMS
The Queen, the best of the BEST
No one can do it better than I
I watch over all like a spy in the night.
I see all, I hear all,
People are learning
Whether they like it or not!
My mind is clear;
Waves of emotions fill the halls.

I am the principal of PVMS
And I know what to do.
Collect some ideas
With the twist of some arms,
Add my magic for a special curve,
Invite fancy people to awe
At my school
My students who fear me
My teachers that loathe me
The others that tiptoe around me.
They think I am amazing;
More professional than all.

I am the principal of PVMS
I make rules that can’t be enforced
Holey Jeans, piercings, and gum
Are only a few of the my favorites.
There are many more that I see
With my million eyes in the sky.
I double check my facts with clouded glasses.
I triple check my facts with my belly button.
I am never wrong and always see right.

I am the principal of PVMS
When I am right, I am always right.
I never apologize or thank
Your job is education.
Do not think I am wrong.
It is someone else’s fault, I’m sure
Take a number, pick a week
We’ll go in order so everyone is complete.

I am the principal of PVMS
I can set us on our path to
Multiple-choice test success!
We just need to start by
Teaching our students
It a new idea, I hope ya’ll like it.
Just thought of it now,
Before teachers were doing
Nothing at all.
Many were even hanging around
Way past closing time,
Loitering about, up to no good.
These teachers I target
With skill and delight,
Aiming for heart and making the mark!

I am the principal of PVMS
I care, I love, I won’t give up a fight.
Seven times six is forty-forty
And that other word I can’t remember
We have to come together
We have to work real hard
My job is on the line here
One good reason to at least try
While I degrade, disgust, and digest
The mistakes we’ve made,
I know my way can work.

I am the principal of PVMS
I know it all.
If we’re screwed,
It’s clearly  not my fault.

Overpaid

They say I am overpaid;

They say I have summers off.

Class at Eight

Morning Duty at Seven-thirty,

If I am Lucky!

Five Journals Completed

One by one turned in

One by one graded

Five Short Lectures

The Joy of Teaching

Five Short Practice Assignments

Maybe Homework for you

One by one, turned in

One by one, graded

One hour to grade

Same hour to plan

Same hour to copy

Same hour to connect

To those that need it

Checking reading

Grading tests

Reading essays about ferrets

Keeping up on research

Tolerating new laws

Planning lessons

Finding connections

Building relationships

Calling parents, counselors

Making assessments

Organizing events

Coaching a team

Meeting with parents, counselors

Skewing data

Motivating reluctant students

Challenging them all

Preventing fights with kids and adults alike

One hour is over

My reward,

One more hour

Before the end

Fifteen minutes of reading

Staring out the window

Staring at their neighbor

Staring at the dirt under their nails

Picking their noses

Thirty minutes of shh, shh, shh

Three warnings

Multiple threats

It’s OVER.

Or is it?

My day is done;

My job is not.

They say I am overpaid;

They say I have summers off.

Hold Out or Run Away?

I have wanted to be a teacher since the third grade.  I knew it from the start of Mrs. Coy’s lesson on fractions.  She pulled out a bag of oranges, and we had to divide them up for the class in equal parts.  This may also have been the only time I ever enjoyed math.

I should have seen the signs long before.  My mother told me I was insane to major in English because my only hope was teaching English.  I laughed at her because I had fooled her; I wanted to be an English teacher.

Of course, I wasn’t always sure I wanted to teach English.  When I was young, I wanted to inspire little minds.  It took about two years of practicums in first and second grade, and I knew I couldn’t handle it.  They were so touchy, and I found myself picking up a variety of messes, from wet pants to potting soil.  And the cutting and pasting and PAINT….no, I couldn’t do it.

When I discovered my love for the middle school rascal, I knew I had found my spot.  In middle school, the kids still are still pretty relaxed.  They are not afraid to be odd because they couldn’t help it if they tried.  My students start getting mature and serious about the last couple months of eighth grade.  At this point, they no longer think I am even a little funny or cool.  Regardless, I knew that I had the mind of a middle school student.

During my first years as a teacher, I was surprised, of course, by the multiple levels kids were achieving at in class.  My first assignment, although remote, I taught sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.  This was during my student teaching; it was a trying time for the school I chose.  The principal had recently left and was never replaced while I was there.  In addition, my mentor teacher switched jobs after the third week of school and left me to teach illegally alone.  I persevered and did the only thing that I could manage as a first month teacher; I taught the same thing to every class.  My sixth graders sometimes outperformed my eighth graders, and vice versa.  Still, I never even considered giving up, while the other adults seemed to be doing just that.   I should have accepted their rush to leave as a warning.  I didn’t; I was falling in love with my job choice.

Furthermore, I continued to be disillusioned in my first real position.  My principal was as crazy as I was.  Everyone worked late hours, and we all blended into each other’s social lives.  Because it was truly a neighborhood school, there were no buses.  Everyone walked to school.  Students never left.  Often I would have to beg for them to let me go home at five.  I always had two or three students there that wanted something to do.    I was hopelessly in love for sure.

I wanted to experience all the facets of teaching.  I wanted to teach diverse communities and learn every day. I wanted to save every struggling student.  I don’t know why I chose to return to my Mid-western hometown to teach.  Before I was looking into a classroom of a true blue melting pot, now I was looking into a class full of white kids.  The kids looked different, but it wasn’t really them that made it change my career choice.

I guess I should explain.  I did my student teaching through an exchange program.  Because of this, I spent my student teaching in the desert teaching on a reservation.  Yet, that wasn’t enough for me.  I didn’t want to go home after that experience, so I accepted a job in Los Angeles teaching at a school that was seventy percent Asian.  Between those two schools and seven years of experience, I probably had about twenty-thirty white students.  In the same amount of time in my Mid-western school, I have probably seen twenty-thirty students of any other race.  Surely after fourteen years of experiences, I can honestly say, the color of their skin doesn’t change much about the classroom.  MTV has a bigger affect on the changes in the students than race.  One noticeable difference in the Mid-west is that lower income families struggle more emotionally than the immigrant families of California. Ironically, in the Mid-west I have seen more drug use and unemployment than I ever did in Los Angeles.

The kids haven’t surprised me in my profession on either side of the country.  Even the parents haven’t surprised me really.  Yes, I have had multiple parents curse at me.  I have had parents swear their child would never do anything like that in public.  I have had parents that don’t participate at all and parents that can’t stay away from school.  On a positive note, I have seen more parents at school events  in the Mid-west.  However, I often noticed that Asian parents may be quiet on my side of the experience; they are very present in their child’s life.  In fact, I would say that my California parents were more eager to solve problems and issues on their own.  They did not need me to notice certain behaviors for them or offer solutions to obvious problems.  I don’t know how many times I am asked how parents can possibly get their kids to do homework or study in the Mid-west.  Uh duh, make them sit down and study in front of you.  Participate in your child’s life and school work?  School work in the Mid-west definitely plays second fiddle to sports and outside activities compared to California school. Still I love my job!

These issues have never really bothered me as a teacher.  Sure, I get frustrated or upset at the times, but I know these are just part of the job.  What I don’t understand about this job is the politics!  They put tears in my eyes and keep me on edge every moment of the day.

Why does the government think that they can cut resources and achieve better results?  The state is asking us to put every student on a computer at the exact same in school for a state test.  Sounds great!  We don’t have enough lab space for this.  The internet doesn’t even work well enough with six hundred computers sharing the same internet line.  Our school does get money for technology, but the middle grades are like the little sister in the family.  You get to share the high school’s hand-me-downs.  And you don’t get anything new for yourself.  My school actually gave the teachers laptops a couple years ago.  The teachers’ computers, of course, were handed down to the students.  Two years later, the district has not continued the upkeep of the laptops.  If they don’t work, then teachers are out of luck.  They don’t intend to fix them, and they don’t have an alternative solution at this time for your lack of computer. Our first real possession and they are not going to keep them working for us.

Why would the government want to over reward good school and punish poor school with less money?  The city that the school is located in can be very important.  If my school is in a good neighborhood, the parents are going to be a stronger present in their child’s lives.  The kids do better.  They have better values.  The state gives them more money because they perform better.  The lower income cities don’t have parents as an asset.  Their parents are working two jobs trying to keep it together.  Their parents are suffering from unemployment or drug abuse. The school is punished because their scores are low.  Shouldn’t we be trying to make those kids that have bad parents overcome their parents’ mistakes and be better adults? Sure, we can be selfish.  Let’s make the rich kids smarter.  Or we can make the poor kids be more successful, making cities even greater.  Our best teachers should be working at these poor schools.  At the rich schools, the parents can manage the kids.  In the poor schools, the kids need every ounce of love and attention they can find because when they go home they are just home alone or home with their four siblings.  Some of my students only eat at school; thank goodness we serve breakfast.   How can some of these students even show up for school with what they are dealing with at home?  Let alone take an hour long multiple choice test over the most uninteresting reading material ever to be found in the world.

Why does the government feel like teaching to a multiple choice/short answer test would be beneficial?   Where in life does your boss EVER ask you to sit down and take a multiple choice test?  When in life are you only given your brain to do a job?  When in life are you given a task with only one correct answer?  I can’t imagine training the future to think in this manner is going to help us achieve any fabulous future goals.  Unless of course, they plan to make a Nobel Peace Prize SAT exam version.

Why would anyone with a college degree have a competing salary with high school graduate?  Was my mom lying to me?  I always thought that if I went to college and got a degree, I would then make more money in my more meaningful job.  Meaningful evidently is code for stressful.  The janitor makes ten grand more than me; he doesn’t take his work home, needs no sense of urgency unless someone pukes during passing periods, and isn’t evaluated based on how much trash the kids put into or out of the proper receptacle bins.  I think I got a bad deal.  I work twenty hours at home each week.  I get ten grand less, and the MAN is still telling me I make too much.  How hard could it be to teach kids?  An administrator told me once in response to a student who wouldn’t turn in his homework, “Just make him do it.  You’re the adult.”  WTF?  Yes, my job IS that easy.  I give directions, and kids take notes over the directions, ask for help when they need it, and turn all their work in on time.  If my dumbass administrator in my same Hell doesn’t get it, how could some bald rich dude sixty miles away going to have a clue?  They probably had parents at their house.

Why doesn’t the government hold parents accountable?  This year alone I have had students in my class: lose a parent, catch a parent using drugs, find a parent abusing pain medication, bring a parent’s arrest report in the newspaper for a current event, got a call from a parent telling her to stay at a friend’s because she had a new out-of-town boyfriend, and probably a number of other things that thankfully they have not shared YET.  We have certain alienable rights as Americans.  We take a test to graduate from high school, to get a driver’s license; we have to be eighteen to vote and twenty-one to drink.  There is no test or age requirement for parenthood.  No one is held accountable as a parent.  Good parents are not rewarded.  Poor parents have no consequences.  If your child CANNOT pass state standardized test, you should not been given your tax deduction for your child!!!!  You are CLEARLY not doing what you are supposed to be doing as a parent, so why the fuck should you get a tax break for being a parent? You were NOT a parent that year.   Because that is what they are telling teachers everywhere, they will cut our salaries if our students cannot grow from year to year, no exceptions.  Each student that does not grow takes money away from the schools.  I only have these students one or two years of their lives, yet I am held accountable for their educational growth.  My livelihood is at stake.

Why would the government want to push good teachers out of the profession?  Who wants to be teacher if you can’t support yourself on teaching and still have a life of some kind? Who wants to be a teacher if you are stressed into depression?   I can’t even imagine what people with their own children face each day.  I just come home to me.  Even with my family close, I do not have responsibility to see them daily if I don’t choose to.  The profession continues to stack paperwork on top of paperwork to get and keep a teaching license.  For a forty grand a year job, in order to keep my license, I have to purchase six college credit hours every five years.  Or I can collect more paperwork proving the activities they made me do to earn enough points to then pay more money to continue teaching.  My mom is nurse; she does not have to do any unpaid professional development.  I would think the medical field would change more swiftly than education.  In most cases, they even make more money compared with the hours they work.

My Master’s Degree is a joke.  I would rather clean up vomit than work this hard with this much pressure for little gratitude from adults for an average amount of money.  Or would I?  This extra added pressure from the government has to go away at some point.  I loved loved loved my job a few years ago.  I love the kids now.  The parents are just plain entertaining because there is no use worrying about something you cannot change.  BUT the politics are killing it all.  Do I hold out or run away?

Sick of Being Sick

I haven’t submitted anything for awhile. Not because I haven’t had stories to tell, I always have stories, but because I can’t seem to tell the stories without incriminating myself.   I know I have freedom of speech, and really I am doing very little wrong since I never name names.  I don’t fear for my students.    People recall funny incidents about students all the time.  I always thought I was going to write a book that would highlight all the humorous episodes I have faced in my teaching career.  In fact, my hopes for this blog were just that.  Somehow, unfortunately, my blog has turned into a rant about my principal.  My life has turned my life into a rant about my principal.

The problem is the more I try to avoid this madness the more the infection spreads.  It has spread into my teaching obviously.  I  over analyze every single word and phrase I say in class.  In some ways it is good to always be looking for way to improve; it is just that the motivation is all wrong.  I actually believe I try to improve regularly anyway.  I guess I am self-motivated.

It has spread into my social and family life.  My mind upon returning from work is not able to relax.  My friends, educators and non, are tired of hearing my stories.  Most of them seem too bizarre to even be believable.  Of course, more bad days require me to restrain my anger even more for the other little things that happen in my life.

As this epidemic spreads, I feel reluctant to continue my blog as it is.  I fear that if that I attempt to force these feelings about my boss out of my blog, I have to change my topic…channel my energy in a more positive way.  I feel that it is time to take a new direction in my blog. I don’t want to continue to moan and groan about my boss.  I may still revisit the topic of school.  My students do surprise me still; I think I am just struggling so hard to be what someone, who I don’t respect or trust, wants me to be that I can’t seem to see all the beauty in teaching. She is quite literally strangling my love of teaching.

I have always wanted to be a teacher.  I will always be a teacher.  I want desperately to be a writer.  I can do both without committing emotional suicide.  I am just going to avoid my struggles with my boss for my own well-being. It will make me a better person or in infect me with the disease of all diseases.   Either way I plan to break free of the hold she seems to have over my life.

Protected: Bullies Come in Every Age

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Protected: Small Battle Won or We were Fooled?

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Supplies Aplenty

School supplies, if bought at the right time, are pretty cheap.  I can get folders for dime, or pencils and notebooks for a penny. Because of my thrifty shopping, I give students anything they need to get the job done.  I even instruct them to grab these items as they enter room without asking.  It can be frustrating to give the same person a pencil daily.  I can get past this; if they just do it themselves and not remind me DAILY they lack supplies.    How can some students lose a pencil a day is beyond me, but I don’t question them as long as they take care of these needs quickly and on their own.  It wastes class to take collateral, like a shoe or an agenda (I know of teachers who have collected both).  If the students  could just remember to grab them from the various places in the room before the bell rang, the world would be a perfect place.

Of course, it does take a little bit of time to get use to what each teacher expects.  A month into school and some students are still trying to figure it out.  Patience is definitely something I should work at, but I really do try.  However, some students get “lucky”; they have me for 7^th and 8^th grade.  They don’t have to learn my expectations all over again.

One student has had the pleasure of having me two years in a row.  He probably doesn’t consider it enjoyable because I have been emailing his mother weekly for twelve months (at this point).  Most days this particular student is on top of things.  He does struggle to get motivated and does space out at times, but he knows BETTER.

He asked me for a pencil; I actually didn’t have any stocked.  I quickly and happily grabbed him a brand new pencil.  I started the class in today’s journal.  At which point, the students write in their journal, listen to announcements, and get ready for the next task listed on the board without my direction.  It’s a routine that has been in action for a month, and for second year students for twelve months.

After the journal, the class begins to open their books and get out their discussion guides.  On this day, I was reading aloud, so I read and stopped and the class answered questions on their guides.  As I finish the chapter and the students are feverishly answering their questions, I notice this boy isn’t doing anything.  When I question his actions, he shows me the pencil I gave him twenty minutes earlier in class.

The pencil is not sharpened.

I ask him how he could do his journal with a unsharpened pencil.  He said he didn’t.  I asked him why he wasn’t writing down answers as I read.  He said his pencil wasn’t sharpened.  Needless to say, I sent him to the hallway to finish the assignments on his own. I still am pretty sure he never sharpened the pencil.  A lengthy lecture, emails to his study hall teacher and his mother ensue.  At least, his life was spared; thanks to the handy-dandy hallway.

It is clear why I can’t get my work caught up.

Patriot or Tory?

In an effort to teach across the curriculum, we are reading historical fiction in class.  The novel we are reading is My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln and Christopher Collier.  It is basically a story of a family torn apart by the Revolutionary War.  It really is an excellent addition to the social studies unit on the same topic.  The book contains a lot of historical facts, death, conflict, debate, and bad words.  The perfect book for any teenager; the girls even enjoy it.

The cross curriculum project is so successful that one day, a student came into class and told me in a whine, “We are talking about the same thing in here as we are in Social Studies.  The Revolutionary War is everywhere.”  Like I acknowledge most obvious comments, I wrinkled my brow and said, “That was the point.”

When students fail a grade, they get to complete the grade again with all new teachers.  One purpose for this is because if the student didn’t learn from one teacher’s style one year, it isn’t going to happen in the second year.  Another reason for this is because if the teacher fought all year to get the student to work and never succeeded, then the teacher deserves a break.

We have been discussing the Revolutionary War for two weeks now.  Even the student repeating 8^th grade is reading the novel for the first time because his first 8^th grade teacher did not teach the novel.  Although this particular student has not finished the novel, he did “learn” about the Revolutionary War in social studies last year.

I started the class in an activity where the students analyze the two sides of war and decide whether they would like to be a Tory (colonists on the side of the British) or a Patriot (colonists on newly formed Americans).  I have them locate phrases in the novel and quote the book to prove what side they would prefer to be on.   Most students instantly choose to be Patriots for the simple reason that they know that they want to be on the winning side.

The class begins hunting for their proof through the novel, and I hear a few boys in serious debate.  I take note of them; not because I want to stop their discussion, but because I like that they get so passionate about the subject.  I giggle to myself thinking that I have fooled them into thinking learning was fun.  The creative teacher strikes again!

This is when I notice what the argument entails.  The boy, who is now in his second year of 8^th grade, is debating with the other boys, insisting he wants to be a Tory.  The boys laugh at him and began to list all the reasons why he should switch sides.  The boy gets angry in the debate, probably because he realizes he doesn’t have any proof to back himself up. (Not because there isn’t any proof, just because he doesn’t know any of it.)  Finally, one of the other boys asks, “Don’t you want to win the war?”  Dead serious, the other boy replies, “I haven’t finished the book YET, how do you know who wins?”

The boys roar with laughter.  I am slightly amused, yet incredibly concerned.  How can someone sit through lesson after lesson and not understand that the Patriots have to win the war in order for us to be sitting here in the United States of America?

I just assumed kids failed the 8^th grade from not turning in their work or studying for any test.    Apparently, he hasn’t be listening at all in class, and still isn’t listening as the lessons about our founding fathers repeat themselves in two classes.  Common sense is nowhere to be seen.  No teacher is going to entertain some students enough to reach every single one.

This is the future.  Is this the teachers’ fault for not clarifying that the Americans or Patriots do win the war?  Or is this the fault of the students for being in their own self-centered little world?  Surely, I have said at least a half dozen times that the Patriots, the Rebels, the minutemen are the Americans.

Some kids are so special that they will fight education with every ounce of passion in their body.  Is that passion?  Or stupidity?  The future is near and it isn’t all the bright or motivated.  Teachers can’t do it all.

Back to Busy

Just as I expected, I caught up and then was swamped.  Spending Labor Day grading essays made me neglect all my other responsibilities.  As I tried to catch up with my friends and family (thank gawd I don’t have my own children), I ordered supplies, started both grade levels on major projects, attempted to plan a field trip, made dance plans and continued to stock the concession stand.  I fought with another union member because a three day warning that I needed his initials on some paperwork wasn’t enough for him to check his mailing address.  I met with a parent after school, graded make up work before grades were due, adjusted grades to correct a technology error by the new grading program, submitted reading goals and grades, double checked grades over and over again, and went to a union meeting. All while the newspaper asked us our opinion on the President’s motivational speech.  Something I wanted to hear, but I never did make time for his uplifting words.  I lost a student to an angry parent who cursed the assistant principal for my giving the boy detention for not bringing his book to class for the second time in three weeks.  Still, I spent all day Thursday rushing to get my last twenty-two essays graded.  .  It was four days of non-stop work.

My family is neglected even though I saw them two days in my four day week of school.  Still it is a shock to their systems that I am not as readily available.  It is a shock to my system too.  I have been working without any ME time, too.  And right now, ME time is so far down on the list, it is bound to be pushed farther down the list as Monday peeks his ugly head around the corner.  This weekend alone, I struggled to clean my house, help out various friends with long overdue work, and caught up with friends on a camping trip.  My goal is not to make myself sick from overwork.

The FOURTH week of school and I am not back in my routine YET.  This is a tough start. Next week, I have big plans.  Our advertisements for Grandparent’s Day and the Dance will be put in place.  Our first volleyball game will mark the beginning of the concession session.  Student Council elections will take place on Thursday morning.  And I still get to teach five classes a day.   The 7^th graders will be finishing their projects in the computer lab and will read a story.  The 8^th graders will finally start their novels and take a poetry quiz.  This week is going to be 50% teaching and 50% odd jobs from hell.  Just when things seem overwhelming, I get five day to complete the work.  It may be breeze.  I am be pulling out my hair by Wednesday.

Nine percent done with the school year; midterm grades are here; and we are now on the downward slide of the first grading period.  It is proving to be so much work; I hardly have time to prove how much work being a teacher involves.  When you live your life in six week increments, time flies.

LET THE PARTY BEGIN…okay the week, but the positive thought can’t hurt.