Life as a Middle School Teacher

The Final Harry Potter

2007-07-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

I, like many other fans, pins and needles for this book to arrive, yet at the same time lamented the fact this will be the last time I will read a new Harry Potter book. I am happy to say J.K. Rowling did not disappoint us, her avid readers.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling, was one of the most highly anticipated books. I read whie seated on the edge of my seat while Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off to finally end the reign of You-Know-Who. Their search for the horcruxes takes them on a lengthy adventure while the characters themselves are faced with not only external excitement, but also individual realizations.

The climax of the story, which takes place at Hogwarts, is one of the best I have ever read (granted I'm biased). Every character that we have come to know and love bands together to put an end to Voldemort and the Death Eaters. While a few of the characters perish, one bright stand-out hero finally lays to rest any doubts we may have had.

Be warned, however, Mrs. Weasly does utter a profane statement, but rightfully so. If one of my own children were in danger as hers was, I'd be screaming profanities as well.

I loved this book, I loved the series. Thank you J.K. Rowling for bringing back the fun in reading; for giving us a make-believe world we all can relate to; for dreaming up Harry Potter; for writing about friends that are as true as those in the books; and for ending the series when it was time to end it.

A new beginning

2007-07-23T08:21:00.001-07:00

We teachers always tend to look at the beginning of each school year as a starting over point. We will have a new group of students and frequently we will have a new outlook on discipline, classroom management, bulletin boards, and lesson plans. There's a possibility that many teachers stick with the profession because it's like a new job every new school year.

This year, for me, is really going to be new. I've finally made the decision to leave the middle school I have been working at for the past five years. I got to the point I was no longer ok with the principal, largely because she, once again, placed me in a position I had no interest in. What frusterated me more this year than previous years was the simple fact that the position I had been wanting had finally opened and she denied me that job. Aside from the teaching position problems, there were so many other administration issues that I was never happy with. The school I worked at is considered to be one of the worst in our district. Our students came from the poorest neighborhoods, had some severe gang-related problems, and 98% of them spoke Spanish as their first language. We had behavior problems that would make some teachers crumble with fear within the first 10 minutes, yet sadly the principal allowed our biggest gang-affiliated students to remain on campus. She cow-towed to every parent that complained, despite the parents being completely out-of-whack. There was no admin support for teachers that were having trouble with a student and/or a parent. PLUS she took any criticism of her job personally, and frequently retaliated (hence the reason I have been teaching an unwanted subject).

And she was known for her relationships within the school staff that were highly inappropriate. Unprofessional? Absolutely. Disgusting? Even more so. Essentially the principal at that school is a two-faced, lying, slutty, conniving bitch. And i'm glad to be out.

With that sad, the new school is the exact opposite, demographically, of the school I had been at. This new middle school is also the largest in the school district, has the highest test scores, and has one of the highest teacher-retention rates in our district. I'll be teaching a subject I've wanted to teach (social studies) since I started my career, and I am familiar with many of the staff members. I'm very excited to be taking this position.

Bullying

2007-05-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

I found this article on "The Sun"'s Website:

Driven to death - by bullies

By DAVID LOWE
May 25, 2007

COMMENT ON THIS STORY

TODAY is The Big Stand – a national event against bullying.

Celebrities including Chantelle, Beth Ditto and Jo Whiley will join thousands around the country in a bid to give bullying the boot.

One man determined to show his support is Paul Vodden.

Tragically Paul knows the devastating consequences of bullying firsthand.

His beloved 11-year-old son Ben killed himself after being tormented at school by fellow pupils - and an irresponsible bus driver.

The last time Paul Vodden heard from Ben was a text saying ‘They’re doing it again.’

Since his first week at secondary school 11-year-old Ben had suffered bullying – and to Paul’s disappointment it showed no sign of stopping.

When Paul, 57, returned home to Southwater, West Sussex, that night last December his wife Caroline, 47, explained Ben was shut in his room.

The concerned dad went in for a chat – but was horrified to discover Ben hanging from his bunk-bed by his shoelaces.

Paul says: “Unless you’ve ever found your child dead there’s no way you’d understand what it’s like.

“I was deeply shocked but started doing CPR and held him in my arms.

"Something just takes over and you go through the motions of getting an ambulance and so on.

The perfect son ... Ben relaxing

“He was pronounced dead at Worthing Hospital.

“That’s when the floodgates opened and all the emotion came pouring out.”

Paul, a forestry worker, has no doubt Ben would be alive if he hadn’t been bullied.

He says: “Ben was an intelligent, loving, sensitive and fun-loving young chap. He was everything you would want in a son, and now he’s gone.

“He’d be alive if the bullying hadn’t happened.

“That was clear from the outset.”

Ben’s torment began when a gang of boys nicked his tie just a day after he started Tanbridge House School, Horsham.

In the months that followed Ben endured taunts like w***er, dickhead and Billy No Mates from fellow pupils - and even the bus driver Brian McCullogh.

Although Paul complained to the school, C and L Coaches in Lancing and West Sussex County Council, no action appeared to be taken.

Paul says: “What happened was a complete systematic failure.

“I complained about the tie incident in September.

“When Ben admitted the bus driver was teasing him I kicked up about that too.

“A few times I offered to drive Ben to school myself. He accepted on a couple of occasions.

“But he was always keen to try and sort out the problem himself.

“I discovered a week before Ben died on 12 December that he was still on the same bus and facing the same driver months later.

“If anything was done to stop the bullying it wasn’t enough and it was too late to save Ben.”

I see hundreds and hundreds of children being bullied every day and frequently have no idea how to stop it or even to intervene. I talk to the students, recemmond them for mediation, call parents, but it all seems to be a hopeless cause. Frequently the students are bullies because that's what their parents have taught them. So how to we get the bullying to stop?

the end of another year

2007-05-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

It's over. As of today the 2006-2007 school year is officially over. I still have some of my journal entries to share, but I am done with school until August.

It's been a rough year and I can honestly say I'm ok with the end of this school year.

May 7, 2007

2007-05-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

When I walked into my classroom this morning, my thermostat read below 50 degrees. An hor later it was still below 50 and the air conditioner came on full blast. I don't understand how the schools can justify such poor temperature control. We go on and on about how the teachers and students need to put more and more effort into our work to improve test scores, but it's hard to do when the schools can be such a miserable places to be.

At 11am my classroom finally hit 60 degrees and by 12:30pm it was warm enough to take my jacket off. Mind you I still had a sweatshirt and a t-shirt on.

April 11, 2007

2007-05-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

If I make it through the rest of this school with my sanity intact, I'll be surprised. My 7th period class this is the worst I have ever had. the behavior that I deal with in there is absolutely horrific. On Monday I was standing next to Andrew when all of a sudden Lenny jumped out of his chair and punched Andrew on the back of his head. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the attack, yet the parents of both boys seem to think I was being negligent. Andrew didn't it Lenny back, however, a very long string of disgusting words was said. So I had to write them both up. I was disappointed that I had to write Andrew up; he's been making a big improvement on his behavior.

After I got finished dealing with that situation, I had to try to restore order to my 7th period. I had two students who asked if they could get water over and over. Of course I said no, but one of the boys got up and left. The other student got up, walked to my desk, and spit in my cup. I had to leave the room I was so mad. I have been agered to tears very few times. I did manage to calm down after the end of the day, but the icky feeling stucke with me.

Unfortunately every B-day is turning into a nightmare for me. When it comes to 7th period it's like I"m not even there. Erik will go on and on no matter what action I take. Kayleen talks endlessly then gets mad at me when she has to face condequences for her behavior. I am so tired of having that class.

Sadly my 8th period class is getting to be pretty bad as well. I have three boys in there with terrible behavior. Antonio used to be a great student, but his behavior has been horrible. Then they added Jonathan. Jonathan started out extremely quiet. He rarely completed any of his assignments, but was quiet. Lately, however, he has been very rude, disrespectful, and disruptive. He doesn't seem to care about getting into trouble which is pretty bothersome.

April 3, 2007

2007-05-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

The parent conference we had yesterday lasted forever. We get out of school at 3pm and I didn't leave the conference until 5:30. There were quite a few people there at the conference too. This particular student was institutionalized for a period of time, and upoon his release he was given a wide variety of services. He has a case manager from Desert Hills (the local child psychiatric center), who was present at the meeting. He also has a behavior management specialist, a BMS manager, a family reconstructive specialist, and a Youth Development Inc. case manager. Four of of his teachers were there, along with the Student Action Team manager. The principal was there, and the student's mother. This mother seems to believe her son walks on water. He is a huge behavior problem for us, be she always manages to blame us for all of his problems. It is parents like this that make me hate my job a little bit.

I totally overestimated the amount of time it would take my students to complete today's assignment. My first two classes had 30-45 minutes of free time because they all got done so quickly. I didn't have anything else for them because I'm starting a new unit next week and I want all of the classes to start at the same time.

As of today there are 36 days of school left, which means I will see each of my classes at the most 18 times.

April 2, 2007

2007-05-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day back after spring break and my brain did not want to go back to work. I hate going back after break. We started the week with a B-day so I had a meeting right off the bat, it was lame and unorganized. I also found out that I have to stay for a parent conference AFTER school. It makes no sense why we have to schedule time AFTER school when we have conferencing time built into the school day. This particular child is a pain in the butt. He has a behavior management specialist that follows him around all day and essentially does nothing.

My 7th period class was pretty horrible. I can honestly say I hate that class.

I'm on the hunt

2007-05-14T20:10:00.001-07:00

I've been at my school for five years now. Some of you have been listening to be complain about this school for about three years, and few of you know the entire story.

I got hired at this school about six years ago as a 6th grade language arts teacher. I did that for two years at this school, and we had a HUGE drop in enrollment, so we had to cut six teachers. I had the choice of taking a short term assignment somewhere else (and lose my retirement, insurance, etc) or taking the science position where I'm at now. I had become pretty comfortable at my school so I made the decision to stay. My principal swore up and down she would do everything in her power to get me my job back as soon as possible.

Well that was three years ago. I hate teaching science, but I have stuck with it because I have made a committment to my school. And I feel like it is MY school. I have had three to four siblings from the same families. I've had cousins, uncles, aunts. I love knowing that 25% of my students are relatives of kids I have had before. I know the community, they know me, and I'm comfortable. PLUS we bought our house on this side of town because it's close to where we both work. But I've been waiting patiently for the past three years for my Language Arts position to come back to me.

So this year there are two language arts openings for the upcoming school year. One of them is a "short term" position because the woman is taking a year of maternity leave. She's a 7th grade language arts teacher. The second is a 6th grade Language Arts teacher who is retiring (so it's a long term position.)

I got my official "change of position" paperwork about two weeks ago, and my principal is offering me the short term position. I'm pretty fucking pissed. I have refused, which means she has to find me a long term position within the school, but she said flat out she isn't going to offer me the sixth grade position. I've then got the option to find a new school or take a science position in my school.

Now I feel like I have given everything BUT my firstborn to this school and this is what I'm getting in return. Many of you have been listening to the stories I have told, and you know the hell in which I teach. My principal is currently going through a paternity lawsuit because her husband believes her son is the product of an affair between her and the husband of one of the teachers. It is a well known fact that my principal has been having a lesbian "affair" of sorts with two of the other teachers at my school. This is probably the most unprofessional situation I have ever worked in, and this includes Chuck E. Cheese's where the managers were all 17 years old.

So I'm looking for a new school and it's breaking my heart. I've had so many kids that have asked me if they can be my student aides next year. I have so many kids from my very first group at this school that are graduating from high school next year and were planning on sending me announcements. That can only happen if I stay at the same school. I'm so devastated. I cried all day today knowing that was the decision that I had to make.

March 22, 2007

2007-05-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Team this morning cncluded a parent conference for a student we've had conferences four times already. He has some major impulse control problems and has not yet been able to control himself. He did, however, manage a HUGE academic improvement during the last quarter.

The rest of the team meeting included a lenthy discussion on why our jubs sucks right now. Being a teach right now feels frequently not worth it. Especially when nyou work at a school like mine. Our students are a different breed and yet they are supposed to meet the same measures of students who are essentially from a different world. Many of them even speak a different language!

My 7th period class is so completely out of control. It took them 20 minutes to write 3 complete sentesces which is ridiculuous. When I tried to get them to grade thier papers, I lost them again. Edwin is probably my biggest talker. He rarely acknowledges that an adult is in the room, nor does he care. He is missing a ton of assignments and is currently failing my class too. I had five students all trying to arm wrestle while I was trying to get a lecture started. I want to pull my hair out! I had two students who worked very hard the entire class period (yay!), and two other students who got their work done but talked the entire time. I feel like giving up with this class, even though I know I shouldn't. I'll try to focus on the students who wish to learn at this point.

March 21, 2007

2007-05-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Of course I can't walk from my classroom to the lunge and back without managing to get myself into at least one conversation. Today I ended up in three. First was the 8th grade academy leader. She asked me to speak to one of the teachers about the referrals she submits to us. I don't like to talk to that woman any more than anybody else does, so I'm not thrilled about that request.

My second conversation was with my mom, so that was ok. But then I got locked into conversation with Ophelia. Ophelia is another 6th grade teacher at my school. Talked to her has the potential to be relativelly unpleasant. She has this belief she knows more than anybody alive. The topic this morning happened to be one of our students. None of us enjoy this child much. However, Ophelia was the only teacher at his conference that had good things to say about him. turns out half of what she said was fabricated, but she's never going to openly admit to that. She also claims she never has any behavior problems with him. The rest of us want to throttle him. Needless to say, it is not the best way to start a work day.

My first period class is so far ahead of the rest of my classes. I had to be really creative with them today. I'm so sick of all the interruptions to my schedule that is causing my classes be all over the place. So I"m having them teach sections from the book to each other. Hopefullly that works.

March 20, 2007

2007-05-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

This morning I had barely walked in the door of the school when my team got called because a parent was waiting for us. Nobody said anything to us about a parent conference today so that was pretty frustrating. It was for a kid that I don't know very well, so I couldn't even come up with a good reason for us to be having a conference!

THEN! Despite my having tons of crap to get done with my team, the principal informed us of a continuous improvement training we were supposed to be in during our team prep. We had no prior knowledge of this so we were all a bit frazzled. What bothered me even more is that we continue to go over the same stuff in all of theose trainings. It's like kill-and-drill for the teachers. I'm pretty sick of it. I'm also sick of the district mandating more and more shit that takes time away from my instruction time. And for some reason the district higher ups feel like this extra stuff is more important than content. Unfortunately, nobody ever asks a teacher before they're making decisions about education.

I have not been motivated to be at work lately (maybe it's because of all this continuous improvement crap that has nothing to do with my teaching or my content). I get here to work and immediately feel tired and lethargic. I don't want to work with the kids at all, nor do I actually want to teach them. Obviously this is not the attitude a teacher should have. Unfortunately I can't seem to pull myself out of this job funk that I'm in. I love teaching, but I am sick of the rest of the crap that I'm forced to be responsible for.

March 16, 2007

2007-05-08T15:28:00.001-07:00

7th Period

I was running late to this class, so when we came in I asked the students to get started quickly. I asked them to stop talking quite a few times, then I tried to circulate the room a bit. That didn't help to quiet them down. I finally asked three of the students who were being quiet and paying attention to join me in the back of the classroom and I worked with them only. The remainder of the class, save for four students, all trickled back to join me. I guess that tactic worked this time.

Just a little note

2007-05-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

I keep a journal of sorts at school to write down how my day is going...etc. I'm going to go ahead and post them here. They will be slightly out of order so I'll be putting the date in the title. The names of any subjects I mention will be changed in an effort to respect the privacy of my students.

Four years of disappointments

2007-05-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

I signed my official notification of "change of position" for next year. I've been at this school for five years and have been waiting to get my original job back for three of those five years. I abhor teaching science and I've been patiently awaiting my 6th grade language arts job to return to me. My change of position paperwork notifies me that I'm going to be put into 7th grade language arts.

This does not make me happy.

I could have taken a 7th grade position last year, and I chose not to so I could stay in 6th grade. I don't like 7th graders. They're horrid.

I'm currently at odds with myself and this decision. I love my school, I love the staff, and I especially love my students. However, I don't want to do 7th grade. So what do I do?

A thought....ok a few thoughts

2007-05-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Right after the Virginia Tech shootings I got on here and typed my little heart out. Sadly I lost my internet connection and my post was gone. It's really too bad because, in my point of view, it was a great post. However, I shall bless and release and move on.

I am quickly coming to the end of yet another school year. As you can see by the number of entries I've had time for this year, it's been a hell of a ride. I work in an inner-city "ghetto" school and my students frequently don't test well. Due to the wonderful "No Child Left Behind Act" my school is required to jump through numerous hoops each year just to prove we are doing our jobs. Most teachers get visits from the principal once a year and get a paper signed at the end of the year that says they are doing their job. That practice does not happen at my school. We get four principal visits per year, followed by a lengthy "post observation" meeting where we get to hear all about our shortcomings. I fully admit that I'm not the greatest teacher alive, but I do what I can. I'm good at my job, and I'm confident of that fact. It is still daunting to walk into the principal's office to hear what I lack.

At the end of each year we go through what we lovingly refer to as a "debriefing." We get an overview of what we did that was good, what we did that needs improvement, and what next year is going to look like. My debriefing is tomorrow. I'm required to show that I followed my professional development plan, which included a wide vareity of professional readings and how I can incorporate them into my lesson plans. I need to show the lesson plans, and student work that documents I did what I said I was going to do. I also have to provide the administrators with data that shows my students have made improvements this school year. Each major subject area has a quartely exam we devised that should tell us whether or not the students are on the right track. My data is beautiful. Unfortunately, my data is supposed to show I teach my subject well, and I don't want to teach science. So I kinda wish my data were less impressive.

Next year we are looking at a state take over of our school. My students have failed to make what we call "adequate yearly progress" based on the state's standardized test. I watch these kids every day and am amazed that some of them even make it to school, much less manage to bring a pencil and a piece of paper. I have students of hard core gang members. Last year one of my students shot and killed his older brother in a gang fight. Many of my students have one or both parents in prison for various felonies. Many students live with grandparetns because one or both parents is dead or unwilling to care for them. I have a student who has three brothers and sisters, and her mom took in her sister's kids and now has a total of 12 children to care for. This student has straight A's and volunteers at a battered woman's shelter. It's amazing what these kids can do. Last year I had a student whose mother beat him with a skateboard so badly he had to have reconstructive surgery on his face. He dropped out of school and got his GED. Now he's the managed of a local McDonald's. Yes, I did have a 16 year old 7th grader. Now he's far better off than he ever was beforehand. Did he make his AYP? Not in the eyes of the government, but in the eyes of those who have watched his struggles for the past three years, he's far surpassed anything we could have hoped for.

Busy? You could say that

2007-03-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me today that I haven't posted in here much this year. My apologies. However, I have few to no readers, so I'm not all that worried about it.

I took on a new position at my school this year, that of a behavior director for 6th grade. I work an extra hour each day dealing with student referrals and calling parents. I set up parent conferences, meet with parents and teachers, and dole out consequences to students who are my repeat offenders. It has definitely opened up my eyes to a new world of education. I had never been on the other end of a referral, I usually just wrote them. Sadly it's a group of about 30 students that I see the most. The rest of the students have been wonderful this year.

Along with that I am still a full tim teacher with a full classload again. I am still teaching science despite my utter disdain for the subject. I'm doing ok with it, however. Many of my students have tested quite well in science so I must not be doing too poorly at that job. I have an eclectic group of students this year. I work in a low income district and frequently have trouble getting parents involved in the school. This year I have had more than one parent be proactive about their childrens' education. It's a pleasant surprise. I also have some of the worst behavior problems I have ever had this year. I have a total of 22 students taking medication for either ADHD or depression. I have two students that have private behavior management specialists that accompany them to class everday. This year I have the highest percentage of students reading at or above grade level (8%). I'm pleased with that as well, but I also have the highest percentage of students that are considered non readers (22%). Having them all in the same class makes my job relatively difficult.

We have gone through yet another vice-principal at my school this year. At some point my school district will see that the problem might actually lie with the principal and not the people they have placed in the vice-principal position. The state department of education has also decided to "take over" my school because we have been on "corrective action" for five years now. Sadly the programs they plan on implementing are going to drive the majority of teachers to different schools. Also, those people who make decisions about the programs have not taken into account the reason why my students don't test well, so the programs have little chance of being successful.

I have officially decided the teaching profession has gone downhill. I would like to be able to see it change, however, I don't know how to help or even to get it started. Any ideas?

A new year

2006-07-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

My school year starts on August 7, so I have one week to go. I can't say I'm looking forward to this year. I'll be teaching another year of a subject that I hate. However, it was easier than trying to find a new school during this incredibly hectic summer I had. So I'll grin and bear it for another year. The good thing about teaching a subject that you aren't all that familiar with is it really helps to improve your teaching skills and knowledge base.

My school got a new vice principal towards the end of the school year, and half of the staff left over the summer. That also doesn't make me want to go back. I didn't have much interaction with her, so I don't know her that well, however they say she is horrible. We'll see. I don't want to prejudge the poor woman. She came halfway through the second semester and my school isn't exactly user friendly.

So I'll keep you posted.

December 6, 2005

2006-02-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

One of the teachers on my team took half of our students on a field trip, so my classes were very sparsely populated today. Unfortunately, it seems as though the kids that didn't go are all the kids that are badly behaved. During SSR today it seemed as though I was spending my time trying to get them under control. It frustrates me becuase I'm a better teacher than that. I haven't been able to finish an entire lesson in almost a week because of the behaviors and the distractions. Today we had a group of 8th graders run through the 6th grade hallway screaming bloody murder. There are no adults in the hallway to shoo them, so the older kids have free reign of the school.

Every three weeks my students are given progress reports that they are asked to take to all their classes to get their grades, then they need to get a parent signature on it and return it to their SSR teacher. I attatch my class progress report and request a parent signature on that as well. I keep these in their files so when the parents sit down with us at conferences and ask why their kid is failing, I've got documentation.
(Don't you love that word? Documentation. Every teacher knows that word)
Of course, they all fail to remember that they had already seen the progress report and signed it. Almost always the parents will argue with me.

The progress reports were due today, and I had less than a 35% return on them. How do I entice my students to bring in their progress reports on time? How do I convince the parents that grades are important?

I'm sorry!!!

2006-02-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy I haven't even had an opportunity to come to my blog lately. I am pulling my hair out with frustration at all the tasks I'm required to complete, and teach at the same thing.
I've been keeping notes at work, so that I can update my blog. I'm going to have to update since December all at once though. So I'm sorry.

This one student...

2005-11-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

There is a boy that I have in one of my classes. We are going to call him George. I had some behavior trouble with this child early on, and we have since moved on from his temper tantrums in my class. He isn't the hardest worker, but when he is at school, he does try. However, he has some serious absence problems. He had 17 absences from the first 9 weeks, and then he was gone for an entire week last week. So I began to worry. When George came back after his week off, I asked him why he was gone. He informed me that he was working and he couldn't come to school. Now, this child is 11, so he has no business having a job. I didn't think that was the entire story though, so I told him we needed to talk to his mother. He doesn't have a phone at his house. Hmm, ok, well what is your address and I'll run up to your house during my prep and talk to her. Well, he says they aren't living at that house anymore.

I got a bit suspicious at that point. I asked him where he was living and he told me that it had been changing every night, but tonight they were staying with a friend of his mom. He said the vice principal had more information about why he had been absent so much and that I should talk to him. So I did. Apparently, George's mother was beaten badly by her boyfriend and they are trying to hide from him. So they go to a different place every three or four days so he can't find them.

I decided that I really needed to go visit this mother, so after school yesterday I took George home. The school's resource officer came with us, just as a precautionary measure. I talked to the mom for quite some time, and she seemed genuinely afraid of her ex-boyfriend. She is also willing to work with us on getting George to school on a regular basis, and possibly forcing him to quit his job to focus more on school. Which was awesome.

She agreed to come into the school and fill out paperwork to file a restraining order on her ex-boyfriend, and she said she would also fill out the paperwork to get assistance to help her with George. Now, the school's resource officer and I have agreed that if she doesn't make it into the school for her appointment, we are going to seriously consider pulling George into protective custody. Seems drastic, but it needs to be done.

At the end of the day yesterday, I was emotionally drained.

The Day After

2005-11-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

I forget that Halloween doesn't end with October 31st. Today the students' backpacks looked about 30 pounds heavier. It never occured to me that the kids were carrying around all of their candy. I didn't allow my child to bring her candy to school because from my point of view, it's inappropriate. I assumed that the vast majority of parents were of a similar frame of mind.

Apprently none of those parents have students that actually go to the school I teach at. When I made a comment about the candy in one of my classes, every single one of my students pulled an engorged bag out of the backpacks. My jaw hit the floor with shock. I don't think I saw that much candy on the shelves at Target.

I sat there this morning wondering what was going on with my students because they were out of control. Until my nieve butt remembered that these kids consumed half their yearly allowance of sugar overnight. I told the kids that they were not to be eating candy in my classroom. Did they listen? Of course not. On the plus side, I have a ton of chocolate in my desk. That should make my week go by pretty fast.

Halloween

2005-10-31T19:49:00.000-08:00

Halloween is one of those days that we middle school teachers hate. We know the kids love it, but at the same time they wreak havoc all day and it's a totally wasted educational time. They say we are supposed to be teaching them every moment they are in school, yet days like today complete prevent teaching. The first class of the day wasn't bad. I didn't expect much from them, and we didn't get much done, so all was good. Then second period rolled around, and although my agenda for the day was sparse, we were unable to complete it. I had a hard time keeping all 19 kids in that class seated the entire time. It was horrible. We had a "super lunch" where all the students get both lunches and it's a big carnival. They were looking forward to it so much that it prevented them from copying five things from the overhead. It was embarrassing. By the time the bell rang to end that class they were hanging out the door behaving as though I was torturing them. I almost wish I had taken pictures.
The carnival lasted for an hour and a half. Groups of teachers had set up game booths and offered prizes. My group did a bobbing for apples booth, and I was surprised to see the amount of interest. These adolescent girls who spent hours on their hair were gleefully dancing their heads in freezing water in an attempt to catch an apple. It was so much fun to watch. I was sad when we ran out of apples.
Then we had to survive the remainder of the day with a bunch of students who were no longer interested in being at the school, but had no escape. The icing on the cake was when my 3-year old daughter decided to take a nap at the tail end of my prep period, and right before my biggest and most rowdy class. I had been trying to get my daughter to lay down all through my prep and she was totally uninterested, then she up and decided she was tired and she wanted to relax. She set up her blanket and pillow, and promptly crashed out. So I had to threaten painful torture to my students to make sure she got a bit of a nap in. She slept for about 45 minutes, then woke up all chipper and ready for more action. It was great. I thanked my fourth period so much for being so quiet and well behaved. As soon as those words were out of my mouth they turned into a pack of wild animals.
I count my blessings wherever I can find them.

2005-10-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

We have had such huge and eventful days, that the UNEVENTFUL days have become significant to me. It's embarassing. I had a day go by the other day with no behaviors that required a student being removed from my classroom, no fire or evacuation drills, no assemblies, no meetings, and all the students completed the task for that day. I got done at the end of the day with my sanity intact and I wanted to cry. All of a suddent a "normal" day freaks me out.

My students are into the evolution unit. Last year I didn't teach evolution. I totally skipped it. I think it just didn't fit right into my year schedule. This year, however, the science department decided that Evolution was a concept that students needed to have, so teach it I am. They are getting it to a certain degree. They understand that at some point in the Earth's history, there were no people. That we, as a species, evolved from an already existing species. Except, they can't tell you that. They get the concept, they just can't figure out how to spit it back out in words that make more sense to them. So we are working on the skill of summarizing. Somewhere along the way, they never learned how to summarize the texts they read. They can summarize stories, no problem. However, when it comes to content area text, they have a lot of trouble. So that's what we have been focusing on.

2005-10-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

The days keep going by and I swear I have no idea what day of the week it is or what month it is anymore. They just run into each other to the point where they are all the same. I feel like I'm a robot, just there to accomplish a task.

Oh wait, that's what I do.

We are now into the second quarter. I began my unit on (drum roll please) Evolution. It's a concept the students understand far more than classification. I don't understand why. Students classify everything on a daily basis, yet they can't understand the concept of classification. What was even more frustrating is that we have to apply the information we learned in the classification unit to the evolution unit. So where do I go with that? I have to almost retake classification in order to teach evolution. Thankfully, evolution is interesting to them. They get a kick out of knowing their ancestors were more closely related to monkeys than any other creature. When we talk about that, we always elicit tons of giggles. They then feel like we had sex with monkeys. Ew.

I got rid of a student this week. Her mother has been up my butt about any types of punishments that I dole out to her child. So I gave that kid away. I wasn't allowed to punish her, yet her little &%$# was always doing something wrong. This past week I finally asked the mother what type of punishment should be allowable and she said none, that my rules were "stupid." Oh, well that's just great. That child is well on the path to becoming a member of the local prison system. If only that kid's mother could see the damage she was causing.

Everything else has been quiet. My ceiling is still leaky and every storm creates a new hole. I have a child who had to be removed from the school because the mold was causing severe allergy trouble. How sad. They came and replaced my ceiling tiles, but then it rains and gives me new holes. The insulation that lays on top of the tiles is black with mold, and the tiles themselves get moldy within a week of being put in. It's disgusting, and it saddens me that children in the 21st century living in America can't even have a school that doesn't leak when it rains. Oh, but the front office got brand new furniture and a fresh pain job this week. How nice for them.

We are gearing up for our Halloween party. Halloween is always hectic and a totally wasted educational day for us. But, it's fun. So we have the big party, get dressed up, and pray to the no fight gods that we will have a good day.

The Full Week

2005-10-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is the first week of the second nine weeks. Unfortunately, this is one of the weeks where I have to be there for 5 full days. Sad isn't it? I'm so used to inservices, and holidays, that this week I have to be there for five years and it's freaking me out. Haha. That's a joke.

So yesterday I had a student who was very out of dress code. We have a very strict dress code at the school where I work. So when this little boy came out of dress code, I immediately called his mom. She got upset that I "interrupted my instructional time" to bother her about her son's clothing. She said she would make a note of the dress code and she wouldn't send him in his out of dress code shirt again. Which sounded great, but unfortunately, we don't allow the students to stay at school if they are out of dress code.
I informed his mother that she either had to come bring him a dress code shirt, or she had to pick him up and take him home. She told me she didn't have the time. Sigh. At that point we have to call family services to come pick up the child, which then puts that family in the system for neglecting to follow the school's regulations. She, of course, thought that was insane and feels like our dress code is a total waste of time and she was tired of it. She would no longer adhere to the dress code.
I'm just a lowly teacher. I have no control over the dress code. So I then tell her that if she is unable to bring a change of clothing for her child, she would be hearing from the principal, and I promptly got off the phone. I called the boss lady and let her know what was coming, then went about my day. Haha, mine turned out to be a bit better than the principal's day.
The mother of this non-dress-code-child showed up at the school. She ripped into the principal tell him how responsible the school is because we are making the dress code a priority over education. She called the principal a (caution, this may offend) "bitch" more than once, then took her child home.
This is the woman who felt that it was more important for her child to stay at school all day in leiu of taking him home or even bringing him a new shirt. Keep in mind she said she didn't have the time to bring him a change of clothes. She had to go to work. However, she had enough time to come in, chew out the principal, and take her child out of the school. Had she simply not allowed her child to come out of dress code in the first place, none of this would have happened. So what do we do now? sigh.

It's raining again. Before I left today, my ceiling was already leaking. I'm frightened for tomorrow.

Ahhhhhh

2005-10-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

The end of the first quarter is tomorrow! Woohoo!!! One down, three to go! Haha, how sad is that??? I'm all ready for the end of the school year already and it barely started. Funny, we've been in school for nine weeks and I still have students that are unable to put their names on their papers. I have a TON of failures and the parents are all mad at me, yet their children can't seem to figure out that when they take work home to finish, they kinda need to BRING IT BACK!!! That's become an issue.

So I am going to spend this weekend grading portfolios and trying to figure out how to salvage grades. I can't have over half of my students failing, so I have to figure where I am going wrong. I am going to be required to do a "standards based progress report" this year, and I have no doubts that the parents are going to find it meaningless. I found it meaningless, and it's going to add about an hour extra per student. Gee, that sound like fun seeing as how I have 120 students.

I am starting my unit on evolution next week, and I am not looking forward to it. I had such a hard time with classification that I'm afraid to get into any more difficult material. Evolution is against what most of my students believe in, so I know I am going to hit some resistance. I'm afraid of my evolution unit. SO, if anybody has any advice or helpful hints, I would sincerely appreciate them. I feel like I'm playing on the wrong side of the playground.

With that said, I am going to indulge in my guilty pleasure (The O.C.) and enter grades into the computer (thank the lord for Gradequick!). Have a great night!!

Nearing the end of the 1st quarter

2005-10-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

I'm in a state of shock because it went by so quickly. I received the folder that has all the bubble sheets for me to fill out, and I almost fell over. Is it really time to turn in grades for the first nine weeks already? Wow! On top of that, I received a memo stating that I needed to turn in a copy of my first nine weeks final exam, which I didn't know I was required to do. I scrambled to put a final together and get it turned in. Phew. I have everything done. I'm giving my final on Thursday and Friday of this week and turning in my scores to the boss lady on Friday afternoon.

I have had no more rain on the floor of my classroom. When the roofers came in they must have patched the roof well because it has been raining for days here. That is yet another worry that I was happy to get rid of this week. I watched the rain come down all weekend and all I could think about was the amount of damage in my classroom. Woohoo!

I finished a unit on classification of living things last week and gave a unit exam. I had no idea that classification was such a difficult concept, but it sure is for 6th graders. I even allowed my students to use their notes on their tests and I still had a ton of failing grades. I had more students fail than pass, which is embarassing to me. Does that mean that I really didn't teach the material well, or did they just no care enough to go through the information better while they were taking the test? When I analyzed the scores, there wasn't one question that seemed to cause more trouble than others. The one question that they missed the most asked them to decide which kingdom of living things humans belong to. Apparently they are under the impression we are Protists. Frightening.

We're going full steam ahead here, despite some of the unhappy situations we have had to deal with. There is some serious angst among the teachers, and we are received with anger when we discuss it with the principal. It's a personal issue with her, and she gets mad. So we shut our mouths and go away to deal with the little stuff in our classrooms. I have tried to pull myself out of the goings on of the school. It isn't worth it to me to know what is going on. I just want to teach. I'm counting down to Christmas already.

Take a deep breath.....

2005-10-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have avoided my blog. I know it's only been about a week since I've been here, but I was, and still am, so angry about my classroom that I just didn't know what to say. A week later there have been no improvements. They cleaned up my floor and they took away all the items that had been destroyed, but the ceiling keeps falling apart and the mold patches are getting wider. I can't do any more than I have already done. It's in somebody else's hands.

I have no words

2005-09-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

I was running very late this morning because my oldest daughter decided that she wanted me to french braid her hair for her school pictures today. I got them done, her hair looked great, and I left the house about 15 minutes later than I should have. I would have been fine if I hadn't been assigned duty this week, so I totally missed that. I am incredibly thankful that I work at the same school my mom does, so she picked up my duty for me this morning. PHew.

On my way to the main building from my car, the head custodian stopped me to tell me that many of the classrooms were flooded in the 6th grade hallway. OH YEAH. It does tend to flood a bit in there when it rains, but for some reason I wasn't thinking that the damage was going to be that bad. For the past four years, if it rained outside, there was water in my classroom. It's not easy to reinforce how important education is when there are six buckets catching leaks from the ceiling. My ceiling has holes in it where the tiles have become so water logged they have come crashing to the ground. Really, my students are beginning to think nobody knows about them.

After today I'm beginning to think they are correct in their assumptions. I was hesitant to open my door when I finally reached my room, so I did it as slowly as I could. Little Amalia though, she was trying so hard to be helpful so she barged ahead of me and plowed into the room. She should have been wearing waders to avoid the water on the floor. I was flabbergasted. There was two inches of water on the floor, and it was still flowing freely this morning promising even more of a pool. I couldn't believe how much water my room could hold. I actually had to study the floor to figure out why it didn't flow out the door. Haha, turns out the floor isn't level. Imagine that.

I couldn't remain in my room, so I quicky moved all that I needed into the library, only to find myself joining two other teachers who were forced to abandon their rooms as well. It is a sad day in American Education when teachers are forced out of their classrooms because of water damage from a simple rainstorm. My students were as discombobulated as I because of the move, and it took us a while to get into the swing of the day. I am very appreciative of all of the students in that class this morning though. Had it been my fourth period class that had to move the entire classroom, we would have fallen apart. I had a great group of students this morning.

I survived my first two classes this morning. During the middle of the second class, I had to send a student to my room to pick up my stapler. She came back looking white as a sheet. She said that as she was wading through the lake in my room, one of the ceiling tiles fell. So I decided to go back to survey the damage. It rained all day, so I figured that the damage would get worse. I didn't want to be right, but unfortunately I was. Almost all of my ceiling tiles fell out, and my light fixtures were starting to fall out as well. Thank god there were no students in there, otherwise we would have had injuries.

And to top it all off, the air conditioners are still on. So even though the temperature outside never got above 55 degrees, we were subjected to freezing air being blown at us all afternoon. By the time the bell rang at 3:05, it was 46 degrees in the library. I have learned that I need to keep a sweatshirt or a sweater in my classroom because the temperature in there is so picky, but unfortunately, my sweatshirt was wet. So it did me no good.

Despite the rainy day, we had a positive ending. My husband found out he is getting a brand new squad car, and we got approved for our home loan. So my family and I will be able to move out of this 1200sq foot apartment, into a 2789 sq foot house. I am so happy I'm in tears.

Lesson Plans, parent conferences, staff meetings, and somebody else's insight into homeowrk.

2005-09-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I spent a large amount of time working on my lesson plans. I have always known that I write an awesome lesson plan. I have spent much of my five years as a teacher teaching other teachers how to write an effective lesson plan. However, I have had a hard time trying to get all of my lesson plans to tie into each other. So this year I have developed my course outline first, then my lesson plans will be required to fit into the outline. I thought it made sense. So I finished my outline, which was an undertaking in itself, then I tweaked my lesson plans based on last year's reflections for each lesson, and I put it into my outline. So when I finished I had this great notebook full of my outline and the lessons that fit into each unit. My only problem is that there are not dates on my lesson plans. I can't seem to figure out how much time each of my lessons is going to last, so I don't date my plans. My principal has commented more than once about my lack of dates. So this year, I also added a monthly calendar that I can use as a daily agenda. That way I can keep my lesson plans date-free, but still show who ever may read my lesson plans when each of my lessons will be given in the classrom. At the risk of sounding cocky, I am a lesson planning goddess.

This morning started with a parent conference. We schedule conferences during our team time, so we're pretty spoiled compared to other middle school teachers. I do not, nor can I, stay after school to meet with a parent. I'm pretty selfish with my time. This woman that we met with this morning is actually the grandparent of one of my students. This student isn't a behavior problem, nor is he chronically absent, nor is he one of those kids that sits and does nothing the entire time. For some reason, he is just doing badly. He is missing some of his assignments, but a lot of the stuff he does turn in he does very poorly. So he is indeed failing. We discovered that he lives with his grandmother, because his father got remarried and the new wife doesn't want to deal with his kids. PLUS, we also were able to read the criminal complaints against him because he has a history of beating his children. It's a sad story. Not the worst I have heard, but it's pretty bad.
We are going to start using some strategies to help this child actually accomplish his work in class. We are also going to be sending him to tutoring after school three days a week. Because my school happens to be a very low income school, we get tons of afterschool programs completely funded by outside parties. I feel like this child has extreme potential. He loves being at school, and he WANTS to learn, he just has a hard time paying attention. So, we work with him. He is going to be one of those kids that we will be able to work with.

I love to read other blogs. I spend large amounts of time doing so. Today, I ran across this post and I wanted to share it with any of my own readers who are also interested. Two years ago, my school did an SQS project concerning homework. Please don't ask me what SQS means, because I really have no idea. What I do know is that it is a continuous improve program where you collect real data, and use it to make improvements. Three years ago, the teachers at my school felt that the lack of homework completion has important enough to do a two year data collection on. For two years, every time we assigned homework, even nightly assignments such as reading logs, we had to keep track of how many students turned in each individual assignment versus the number of students enrolled in each class. It was amazing to see that I averaged less than a 30% overall return on my homework. After a certain number of weeks, we had to sit down and analyze our findings. Turns out most of us had very low returns on our homework assignments. So for the second part of our project, we didn't assign any homework except for nightly reading.
We found that our students' grades improved greatly. It was astounding. So we all agreed at that point that homework was actually causing harm to the students' grades. Now we needed to decide whether or not the students can meet the state education standards WITHOUT the homework. Without any type of research, we decided that if the student is doing all of his/her work inside the classroom, the teacher is actually able to witness the growth and thus be able to see if there are any areas in need of rehabilitation. Now, the team that started the project is still researching the advantages and disadvantages of homework, but after the first few homeworks I have assigned this year, I am in the "no homework" camp. If the kids aren't turning their work in, I am really unable to see if they are meeting standards. Whereas, if they are only doing it in the classroom, I can see it all.

Every other Monday, we have a meeting after school. The first Monday, the meeting lasts for two hours, every third Monday, the meeting is only an hour. Today was an hour meeting, which didn't make it any less annoying. Is there anybody that actually enjoys staff meetings? Today we did the "System Check." This is a questionarre that the entire staff fills out to let the State Department of Education how we feel our school is doing. At the beginning of last year, the State Department said each staff member was to fill one out, and the results were to be tallied and the average of all the answers is the data that gets turned in.
That is no longer the way we do it. Now, we sit down in a "discussion" with the principals and decide together how we feel we are doing. So essentially the principal gets to argue with us, then tell us what is going to go on the Systems Check. It is pretty frustrating. I like my principal, I really do, but I feel like she just doesn't get it. When you hit rock bottom, you can't go anywhere but up. So in this age of sensationalizing the disparities of our education system, would it not be better to hit the ultimate low, so that you have to improve? She does not see that. She hides many of our problems to make us look better than we really are. Which also doesn't solve the problems.
So this quarter's systems check is not an accurate representation of how we, as a whole, feel. But whatever. I am not worried.

2005-09-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

I am going to give you the weekly update. I realize that I am not very consistent, so I am sorry for that. I have a hard time getting to the computer on a regular basis, and when I am here, it typically takes me half an hour just to check my email, and that is my family's time length for me on the computer. However, on a Saturday evening I am not restricted, so here I write.

I have learned that keeping this blog has been quite therapudic for me. I have never told the story of Victor to anybody, so instead I pour in into my keyboard, and all of a sudden it's out there. And I learned that I am not horrible. I am human. Even a teacher is going to break every now and then. I'm proud to say that Victor is the only student that actually received negative feedback from one of my breakdowns.

This past week was a bit of a trial for me because of this nasty headcold that likes my sinuses quite a bit. It's not willing to move out. So I had a substitute on Monday and was pleasantly surprised to find that my lesson plans had been followed all day and all of my markers weren't gone. My chalk had remained on my desk and in one piece. It was a good day.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur. I hate that I can't remember what I did on those two days. I know I met with my team, but I don't know what we talked about. I know I taught, and based on the assignments that were turned in, I assume I taught what I had been planning. However, I have no memory of those two days.

So I took Thursday off. I figured the failure to remember two days of my life and the complete lack of feeling in my extremeties due to the cold were reasons enough to stay home.

Friday, however, made up for the entire week that I didn't remember.

I co-teach one class a day with another teacher because of the large number of special education students that are enrolled in that class. It happens to be the first class of the day. I think the administration at my school did that on purpose to the both of us because we had both been quite used to not having a morning class at all. The past two years my prep periods have all been the first period of the day. As have my co-teacher's preps. So it became quite simple for me to not be at work on time every day. It was a gradual late problem for me. I came on time religiously for the first semester. Then I began to notice that nobody really saw me get there, nor did they care, just as long as my classes were taken care of.
So I started coming later and later. I got so bad that I wasn't getting there until right before my class started...at 9:45am. Yeah, it was pretty ugly.

Turns out somebody did notice, and during my annual review, my principal sat me down and commented on the number of times she saw me drive up at 9:30. I'm supposed to be there at 8:10 every day, so 9:30 was QUITE late. I apologized, told her I would definitely work on it, and all but RAN out of her office.

The beginning of this year rolled around and I was not at all surprised to see that my first period prep had been pulled and I had a prep later in the day instead.

My co-teacher tells of a similar scenario. Haha, we're so bad.

The year started ok, but it slowly went downhill. I got much better at making it to work on time, and I am at the point now where I actually make it to work early.

My co-teacher, on the other hand, is continuing to not make it to work on time. In fact, she isn't coming to work on time in any way, shape, or form. In fact, she gets to work late, then she goes to her classroom for whatever reason, THEN she gets to her actual class about 20 minutes late. This is an every day thing with her. I have learned to accept it. It bothers me that she feels ok going to her EMPTY classroom before she comes to her students. But whatever. I'm not her, and I don't want to make a big deal out of it. However, I am feeling put out, and I don't know how to handle the situation.

On Friday, my co-teacher came in twenty minutes late. When she came into my class she complained about the thing that were missing from her classroom after she had a sub. So solidfying that she did indeed go to her room first. THEN, she got into my room and informed me that she was needed in a parent conference. Ok, a parent conference shouldn't take that long. However, she was gone for half an hour. Upon her return, she said that mom hadn't showed up. Well that's a bummer, but why did that take half an hour?

At that moment, my phone rang and it was my husband with a dire emergency (to him anyway. He was ordering a birthday cake for my oldest daughter and he needed to kow the specifics) so I had to step outside. The students were all on task and I had to reservations about stepping outside. However, as soon as I got done, my co teacher informed me that the parent had showed up and they wanted her for the conference now.

Hmm, ok. Have fun hun. And she's gone again.

Upon her entrance in third time, she talked about the student, how horrible he is in her class, and how mom wants to blame him failing on her, which is pretty normal in this job.

Then she tells me she is going to leave to go get herself ready for her next class. That's about ten minutes early, so she spent a grand total of maybe 15 minutes with her first period class. Now, I can understand that sometimes things come up. But come on. She is late every day, and she leaves early every day. And every day in class she has to go do this, or she has to go do that. Now, I think this must be payback for last year when I smoked, and I took a break during the period we co-taught together last year. I'm not sure. I'm just feeling a bit like she's using me to have an additional prep period.

Ugh

2005-09-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the craziness over the air conditioner. It was fine when school started, but in the rest of the rooms it didn't work at all. So they hired an independent contractor to come in and fix them. Neat. Except, they broke mine. So for the first three weeks of school it was great in my room. Then the air conditioner broke and it averaged 92 degrees by the end of the day. THEN, they fixed the friggin air conditioner and it broke again. Unfortunately, it broke ON, so we were unable to turn it off. So when I went into my classroom in the morning, it was under 50 degrees. I felt like I was working for the Keystone Cops.

The week that it was arctic in my classroom, I had a major allergy fit. It was horrible. I had a sneeze stuck up in my sinuses for a week. Add that to the sub zero temperatures in my room, and you have a full blown head cold.

So I took a day off this week to get better. Of course, the bulk of the cold hit me over the weekend, so my weekend sucked. I had heard that it was warmer on Monday, so I wasn't afraid of going back to school. Then Tuesday morning I get there and it's under 50 on my thermostat again.

Two days of that and my cold is back.

I'll be staying in bed again tomorrow.

My One Regret

2005-09-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't been teaching that long, and an experienced teacher once told me that if you have learned everything you need to know, then you are facing your maker. So essentially you will die when you know it all. Four years ago I was in my second year of teaching, and I think I might not have know anything.

I had this student named Victor. This child was very intelligent, yet he rarely did any work and he failed all of his classes the year I had him. As a teacher, it was horribly disappointing, yet I had so many other students that I found it hard to focus on him, so I brushed him aside.

After about 7 weeks of school that year, he started coming to school smelling very badly. I used to be able to smell him from across the hall, and I knew how far away he was based on how bad the smell was. His team of teachers referred him to the health team, then forgot about him. He went back and forth from smelling bad to being tolerable. Every now and then we had to ask him about his bathing habits, but otherwise we just disregarded him.

Until his behavior went south. He went from being a student we didn't notice to a student that we wished would stop coming to school. He was downright mean. He was mean to the teachers, the other students, and frequently he was mean to inanimate objects as well. He was unpleasant to interact with, and the smell got worse. He was rude and disrespectful. So we started fighting with him. Daily. It was horrible.

We finally decided that it was time to start talking to mom. Yes, I know. We really did wait far too long to discuss his problems with his parents. I don't even have a good excuse. I used to make excuses, but I stopped. We were wrong that year. We passed the ball over and over with that child to the point where the ball became stagnant.

We set up a conference with his mom. She didn't show up. We set up another conference with his mom, and again she didn't show up. We called home and received a message telling us the phone had been disconnected. The social worker at my school finally scheduled a home visit with for this child and we all tagged along.

We were appalled at the conditions in which this student lived. The home had no running water, so they had all of their "toilet" things in the yard. They also kept dirty dishes in the yard which made the smell of the house unbearable. The home also had no electricity because Victor's mother had not been able to pay the bill. So the day we went in it was very hot in the house.

Victor's mother was morbidly obese. She had been bedridden for almost two years because of her size. Victor had been taking care of his brother and sister for those two years, without stopping to take care of himself. Victor's older sister had decided to move back in with their mother as well, making the total number of persons in the house seven. It was a two bedroom manufactured home, with no electricity and no water. I bet you can imagine the conditions.

We immediately called Child and Family Services to report abuse and neglect with this family. Victor's sister's boyfriend was horribly abusive towards Victor and his brother and younger sister. He refused to allow the smaller children to eat in the home, claiming that the older people needed it more.

CYFD decided tha Victor was fine and there was no need to take this child away from his home.

We threw our hands up and let it go. I can't save them all, so I stopped trying.

Over the course of that year Victor's behavior got worse and worse. He treated everybody so badly that he had no friends and even his teachers didn't like him. The other student's threw his backpack away daily because they claimed it smelled like it belonged in the trash. So everyday Victor dug his backpack out of the trash.

At the end of that year, I had been very fed up with this child, and I had had enough. He had spent a class period being particularly disgusting towards others, and I finally let my temper go. I told him: "If you fell off the face of the earth tomorrow, nobody would miss you."

I never saw that kid again after that. He stopped coming to school, and since there was only about a week of school left, I hadn't expected him back anyway. I felt very guilty over that remark. I have never been able to give up the guilt I felt for saying that. That boy was a child, and he didn't ask for his situation any more than I asked for him to be placed in my class. I had no right to say that, and I should have probably found another profession after that. However, they say you lean from your mistakes, and you better believe that I have learned from that one.

Over the summer I decided to look him up. His mother passed away the summer after I had him in my class, and CYFD finally removed him from that home. He had wonderful foster parents, and he had been going to school regularly. That is good.

We all have that memory of that one teacher that we couldn't stand. That one teacher that ALMOST made you feel like you weren't worth crap. Well, I was that one teacher for Victor. I hate myself for what I said to that kid.

Needless to say, I am far more cautious with my temper at school. I will never let my temper slip out of my mouth again. I will never allow myself to be that one teacher that helps a student learn how to hate school. I want to be the opposite. And there is absolutely no excuse for what I said. I could try to blame it on the new teacher in me, and that I simply didn't know better. OR, I could blame it on what a pain in the rear that kid was. OR, I could blame it on the alignment of the stars. But I can't . I was wrong. I was a horrible teacher that day.

I promise I have done, and will continue to do better.

2005-09-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

I survived the week that lasted a year. Unfortunately, I have the back to school crud. I feel like crap. Last year I got the crud about six weeks into the year, and it decided to pay me a visit this year as well. I think it shows up right when I am feeling the most stressed out. My guard is down, and I quit worrying about wiping the classroom down with Lysol wipes after every class period. I am incredibly busy, both with my teacher responsibilities, but also with my family life. So I get kicked in the a** with the crud.

On the plus side, I have time to read when I'm laid up in bed. I ordered my daughter a packet of award winning books from one of her Scholastic book orders. I decided to read them before I handed them over to my 9-year old with blind faith. So far I've gone through two and I liked them both. I don't expect to dislike any of them, but you never know.

I have also had an opportunity to pick up some professional reading. One book I have been reading lately is called Reading Reminders, by im Burke http://www.heinemann.com/shared/products/0500.asp
I have fallen in love with this book. So I purchased another Jim Burke item called The Teacher's Daybook. I have been writing daily reflections in my Daybook so that when I come home on the weekends to blog, I can tell you about my week with more accuracy.

I just thought I would share that with you. I'm going back to bed now.

Open House

2005-09-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ah, the dreaded open house. It's that one night of the year where half of the parents will show up and assume that you want to have a conference with them. I do not keep my grades at the school anymore because of the huge number of grade check requests I get on Open House night. So I always end up with angry parents. They claim the only reason they want to go to open house is to ask the teachers how their student is doing.

Lovely.

Well today is not going to be the day you hear about your child's performance. Call me and set up a conference, or call during my prep time and I will be more than happy to talk with you then. Open house is not the proper time to start asking your child's teacher about your child.

On the other hand, the parents that do show up for open house are almost always the parents of the good kids. Imagine that. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that the more involved you are in your child's education, the more successful your child will be.

Now that I've said that, I guess it's about time I meet my daughter's teacher isn't it?

2005-09-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Last night while I was posting my rampage about the secretary, I forgot to write about a student issue I wanted to put out there and get some feedback on.

There is this little girl in one of my classes who is a total butt kisser, but then she also causes the most amount of trouble. When we passed out the three week progress reports last week, I also gave the students a progress report for my class, so they could show their parents exactly why they are failing. For students with an "F", they needed to get it signed and return it to me.

So my little butt kisser completely avoided giving the progress report to her parents, then tells me she lost it when it was time for her to turn it in. My second step is to write a note home informing the parents of the low grade and attempt to get a signature that way. So I gave the note to this student, then went about my business in that class.

About 20 minutes later, another student approached me with pieces of paper that had been shredded and a larger pieced of notebook paper. The larger notebook paper said "Mrs. ******** is a BIG BITCH," and inside that folded up piece of paper were pieced of the note that I had written to her parents.

I fully realize that I'm being called a bitch. It's part of my job description (at least 25% of your students MUST call you names, it says it in my contract!!!), but I have never actually seen it on paper. It took me by surprise.

So what do I do?

2005-09-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to save my week stories for the weekends and give my loyal (and bored) readers a novel. However, I feel like today warrants an entry all its own.

The governing body of my school is called the Instructional Leadership Council. There are quite a few teachers on the council, and the powers that be decided that the ILT needed to have a working retreat today. That meant that at least ten teachers were out for that reatreat. On top of that, we are all experiencing the back to school crud, so many teachers are out sick. We had a total of 22 teachers absent today. It blew my mind.

My day was ruined this morning. I got to the school and checked my box for anything important. Inside my box was a list of things that I needed to take care of within my team during our common prep today. Ok, no problem. My entire team was absent with the "crud" on Monday, which is why it didn't get done earlier. Thankfully, we were all here today, so I was in productive mode.

I decided to step into the office to make sure the principal's secretary had received the email my co teacher sent. My co-teacher was out with the crud and she had sent her lesson plans to the secretary via email.
I had very bad timing.

There was a pile of sub folders on the principal's desk, and a line of clueless subs in front of her desk. She was handwriting each teacher's schedule for each sub. This made me giggle because there isn't a teacher alive that doesn't have their schedule written down in their sub folder. The secretary is irritated with all the work she is doing, which was made me giggle ( you realize I'm giggling internally. NEVER laugh at the secretaries. EVER) even more. Needless to say, I should have just turned around and quietly slithered out of the front office, but I'm an idiot.

No really, I'm an idiot. Trust me.

I go to her desk and ask her if she got an email from Mel, my co teacher. She hadn't even turned on her computer, so no. Then as I was turning away, she had to ask me why Mel sent her an email. So, because I'm stupid, I tell her that Mel has bronchitis, and didn't go to work. Oh dear lord was that the wrong answer.

She tells me that she's going to need my team's help this morning with subs. Ok, no problem. Oh, nevermind, that's a big problem. I have a ton of stuff to get done and my deadline was two days ago. When I tell her that, her answer floored me.

I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. I don't care about what you have to get done, I need you guys to cover classes.

Excuse my language, but oh fuck!! I got my butt chewed out on Monday because my team was all out sick and we have assignments to complete. Then today my team is all there and we are having to sub for other teachers who are out at a meeting!!!???!!! I had no words to describe how I felt. I went back to my classroom and burst into tears. I don't get reduced to tears all that often, and when I do it's usually out of sheer frustration, which was the case today as well. My principal considers me a second rate human, so you can imagine what kind of teacher she thinks I am. I have been trying so friggin hard to convince her of my worth (but what's the use. I am a DAMN good teacher, and I know that already). Then crap like this happens, and even though I have no control over the situation as a whole, I am going to be the one held responsible for the "assignments" that didn't get completed.

On the plus side, I got all of it done, and we called a ton of parents this morning to discuss some behaviors we have been having. It was a productive morning, it just started badly.

Informing the Failures

2005-09-13T05:26:00.000-07:00

In the middle of every nine week period, I am required to pass out deficiency notices. These get mailed home to let parents know that their child is in danger of failing my class (and usually many others as well). One little known secret about failing a child is that we are not able to put an "F" on a report card unless we have informed the parents ahead of time that there is a chance the kid could fail. So the deficiency report is our venue.

I send a deficiency notice to all kids that have less than a 75% at the time of the reports. I know, it seems harsh to give a kid with a "C" a note that says they could possibly fail my class, but it has happened more time that I want to remember. It is quite easy to go from a "C" to an "F" and then back again. So I cover my own butt by giving just about all the "C" and below students a failing notice. This usually sends them into fits of panic, but they get over it and we all go about our term with big grins on.

Oh, wait a second, no we don't.

We have to deal with parents. Even my students get embarassed by their parents' reactions to hearing their precious offspring isn't doing well. It makes me angry. They always start with "Why did you give my child an 'F'?" Ok, first off, I don't give your kid anying. He or she has earned that "F" by not turning in his/her assignments. All I do is plug numbers into a program that spits out the average.

For some reason, many of my parents blame me for their child's failing grade. One mother has gone so far as to accuse me of throwing her son's work away so he couldn't pass. I have a ridiculuous system to get past accusations like that. I actually check in work as the students turn it in, then I have the student intial in the grade book that he/she did indeed turn in the assignment. Then when I grade that assignment, I replace the initial with a grade. So if a paper is lost by me, then I know that the kid really did turn it in. It also places more of the responsibility of turning in assignments on the student, and less off of me.

Only once in six years have I lost a student's assignment. My baby was teething. She ate a whole pile of book reports. Haha, I thanked her for getting me out of hours of reading boring book reports. I haven't assigned a book report since then either.

So for the last week, and a few more to come, I am going to be bombarded with upset parents. It's at times like this I remind my older daughter to never argue with her teacher (even though I agree that she can be a bit mean and unreasonable). Your life will be much easier as a student if you learn how to kiss your teacher's butt.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Weekend Work

2005-09-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

We have already discussed that a teacher's job never ends when that day ending bell rings. So I thought I would let you know exactly what I did with my weekend. If you don't want to know, skip my blog this time.

Ok, Friday night I had dinner and margaritas with a co-worker. We were at the restaurand for about 2 hours, and I got home at about 6:30pm Friday evening. When I got home, the responsible guy sitting on my shoulder forced me to sit down and work on grading. I decided to stop around midnight when my husband got home from work. So I put in about five and a half hours Monday night.

On Saturday morning I attended my daughter's first class at our new gym. We have had my youngest in gymnastics for almost two years, and she loves it. We were unhappy with the lack of pregression with the first school so we changed gyms. My husband and I had lunch after the class, then we went home. I took a nap (for which I have been feeling incredibly guilty) and started grading papers at around 4:30pm. I worked until midnight again, then stopped when hubby came home from work again.

What, that's 14 hours so far right?

Then Sunday rolls around. My husband and I went to watch my oldest daughter's cheerleading squad get their pictures taken at noon. We also visited Target to clean them out of two-pocket folders with fasteners. We visited the memorial that had been made for two local police officers who recently lost their lives to a "psychotic moron," as my students call the killer. We got home at right about 2:00pm, and after listening to my husband's radio for an hour, he went to work and I sat my butt down on the living room floor again to grade the rest of the papers, average grades for deficiency notices this week, and write lesson plans.

I started working at 3:00 on the nose, and right now it's 11:42. It has taken me about ten minutes to write this far, so I spent another 8 hours on my school work today.

That would be a total of 22 hours I have spend working at home this weekend.

So never believe that a teacher doesn't work enough. I feel like that's all I do.

Oh, I did the dishes, laundry, cleaned the living room and both of the toilets today too.

Time for bed, I'm pretty friggin tired.

I'm Drowning

2005-09-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

This post has the potential to be the longest and most boring in my blog's history (which isn't saying much). This week has been the longest short week I have ever endured. EEK!!!

I'm not sure how many other schools go through the whole "20-day count" problem, but this year it is wreaking havoc on my school. I work in a very transient area of my city, and the parents think the way to get around the system is to continuously pull their children out of one school and put them into another. So, when the 20 day count rolls around, it's like a game to try to figure out where all the students are within the district.

Right now, we are down about 30 students, which is one teacher allocation. So we are looking at having to get rid of one of our teachers. THANKFULLY, admin can't simply pick and chose. They are required to get rid of the last hire within the district. So I'm not worried about my own job. What I do worry about, is whether or not whichever teacher we have to say goodbye to is going to cause that much more trouble on our already taxed classloads.

So, if we close the world a little bit more and focus in on myself, we can take a look at my current situation. I have about 125 students total, which isn't a bad classload. Unfortunately, they are all located in 4th period. Really.

Ok, not really. It sure does seem like it though. My school divides each grade level into two teams. Each team has a common prep period. I have been on the same team since I started at this school, despite having to change subjects in order to stay there. For the past four years my team has been the bastard step-child of my school. There are only two of us that remain on the team on a regular basis. The rest of the team has been in and out every year. We are required to do a lot of things throughout the school year, and they expect us to work together with our teams to do it. So changing teams every year can be stressful. We have to figure out how to work with an entirely different group of people. So every year, this colleague of mine, and I, have to introduce a new group of teachers to how we get things done in the 6th grade.

Now that you know how my school is divided. We need to have an understanding of the prep periods. We work on a block schedule. So every day there are four big classes and a reading class for 40 minutes. The kids have eight classes total, so we see our students every other day. Each teacher gets a prep period every day, but every other day they are required to meet with their teams. Does that make sense?

This year, I ended up on the little team. There are only five of us on our team. We have one Language Arts teacher, one Math teacher, one Science teacher, and one Social Studies teacher, along with one Special Education teacher. We have our prep period during 5th period, which is in the morning on "B" days.

The OTHER team has a whole lot more teachers. They have TWO Language Arts teachers, TWO math teachers, one Science teacher, one Social Studies teacher, an ESL teacher, the behavior academy director (also a social studies teacher), and two Special Education teachers. Their prep is during 4th period, which is at the end of the day on "A" days.

So go ahead, guess why my 4th period is so friggin huge! All of us tha have 6th graders during 4th period have these huge classes, and the other team has no big classes at all. My team has kids sitting on the floor during 4th period, but the other team has no classes over 25 students. My team, and the four of us that are on it, has 130 students, while the other team has 90.

Obviously, somebody seriously dropped the ball when it comes to the master schedule for this year.

Now, let us go ahead and combine the crappy master schedule and the 20-day count. We know we are losing a teacher, and the numbers tell us that no matter which teacher we lose, we are going to need to go ahead and take one of the electives teachers and make them teach 8th grade science. Which is fine, because right now there is only one 8th grade science teacher, and that poor man has close to 200 students. BUT (I know bro, never start a sentence with the word "but." I'm sorry), that still leaves us with a HUGE scheduling problem in 6th grade.

The vice principal said I should go ahead and take care of it, because quite honestely, he just doesn't have the time with all the OTHER responsibilities he has. Ok, no problem

I submit a slew of schedule changes, thinking that we are going to be working so much better once they get taken care of.

Then I talk to the other team, who decided that they didn't want any more kids on their team. They are doing just fine with the kids they have.

Back to the friggin drawing board.

Then there are the students themselves. I get so frustrated with the non-teaching side of my job, that I forget sometimes that my job is about teaching.

Every three weeks we send home progress reports. We require the students to get them signed by a parent and then they are to be returned to their reading teachers. I have been doing the progress reports for a very long time, so I expect that the week they go home will turn into a week where I will wish I had an earpiece for the phone in my classroom.

I was completely unprepared for the response I received this year. I actually have parents camped out outside my classroom door at the end of every class period. Parents that are unhappy with the grade their child is receiving. Ok, this isn't entirely bad. I like being able to actually meet parents.

BUT (sorry again bro), they don't believe that it is their child's fault that the grade THEIR CHILD received is a failing grade. OH NO!! It is MY fault. The teacher, who gets paid crap. These parents are under the impression that I am out to get their kids.

Why yes... muhahahahahahahahahahah. That is the reason we all take this job right? RIGHT??

HELL FRIGGIN NO!!!!!

However, parents listen only to their children. They don't listen to the teacher.
I have learned how to overcome that particular obsticle. It's called a student portfolio. The students are all required to keep a portfolio with all of their graded assignments, and a table of contents that lists ALL of the assignments they are supposed to have. So I get out the portfolio, show it to the mommy who thinks I am the devil's spawn, and wait. Only twice have I ever been argued with AFTER the portfolio.

UNTIL TODAY. Not a single parent I spoke with today was able to understand that their child was failing because he/she wasn't doing the assignments. Or, they were doing the assignments but they were not meeting the expectations of that assignment. I rarely assign work for fun. All of my assignments are somehow aligned with our state standards, so they are all important. They prove that this child is indeed meeting the requirements in order to pass my class, or they prove that this child needs to try it again.

So I had parents today who insisted that I was out to get their kid, or that I was unwilling to allow their child to succeed.

Oh please.

Somebody please help me to remember why I do this job. I have horrible pain in my right wrist today from grading papers for the past 5 hours, I have a headache induced my 11-year olds, my house is overrun by, um, materials for my classroom, and I have to NOT go to my daughter's game tomorrow in order to get done what I need to get done for my class next week. I spend so much time on my job, that I don't have any time left for my life.

And, I have no idea what my husband looks like anymore.

The Long Weekend

2005-09-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

This is the first extended weekend of the school year. My oldest daughter thinks this is the best day all year, but it's early and we haven't had our Winter Break yet. She still looks at these three day weekends with awe, which I find endearing. She isn't tainted yet. However, this year is going to be a major test to her love of school, because her teacher is probably the meanest lady I have ever met. Lucky her.

Yesterday I spent a good six hours trying to get my papers graded. It is pretty difficult to be dedicated to getting papers graded when it's Sunday afternoon and the weather is beautiful, and you don't have a ton of people breathing down your neck to get stuff accomplished. I got half of the assignments graded. I figured I would have time to do it on Labor Day, seeing as how I wasn't required to be at work.

Unfortunately, I failed to remember that next week is week 4 of my school year, and I have to pass out progress reports. My middle school gives the students 3-week progress reports so that they are always aware of their progress in each class. So not only do all of the assignments need to be graded, but I also need to average the grade for each student. That is much more of a daunting task for me, so now I am going to be spending most of my day off being the teacher. I feel bad for my daughters.

My city has now turned into another refugee camp for those who used to be residents of New Orleans. They came yesterday, and will continue to come until we run out of room. I believe that my city is a little known secret within the United States. It's big enough to be called a city, yet it's small enough that we can't justify a light rail system. We have one of the biggest school districts in the country, yet there are cities in the US that educate three and four times more children than we do within this dristict. We are very culturally diverse, yet most of us get along as if there were no differences among us. The clincher for me, however, is the complete lack of natural disasters.

We do not have water, so there will be no floods. We are not on the coast so there will be no hurricanes. Due to our mountains on either side of our beautiful valley, we don't have tornadoes. We have frequent geological movement, so an earthquake is unlikely. I have always felt very safe here, and even more so after the tradegy that struck the gulf coast this week.

I fear that my city may have a bit of a population boom after this.

However, we look forward to the boom. We like people.

My husband and I have decided that once cities like Biloxi and New Orleans get back on their feet, we shall vacation there. They need our money, more than just about anywhere else does.

I've Surrounded Myself With Children

2005-09-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

I realized today that the majority of my life is completely dedicated to children. I spend all day with them at work, then I go home and spend the rest of my life with them at home. I spend my evenings at cheerleading practice (a hazard of having a houseful of little girls), and my weekends are spent rooting for a football team for which my children will only cheer, never play.

I get free time in the shower, and that's about it.

However, due to my incredibly sordid past, my kids are gone this weekend, and I'm all alone.

Haha, and you have no idea what I'm talking about, but that's ok.

Today at school my 3rd period class decided they wanted to have a discussion about the weather, and why this hurricane was so devastating. As a teacher, I need to be able to present the facts, so that's what I did. My wonderful students put the humanity into the story and left me in tears. I can't even begin to explain what happened in my classroom today, but it restored my faith in my job. My students took horrible weather, gave it a heart, poured a soul into it, then painted it a face. It was amazing.

I was sad to watch that class leave today, but leave they did and my regular routing came back (including the hellish 4th period). I survived it, finally got to pee at the end of the day, then got to go home.

At home, and I am going to complain at MSNBC for this later, I sat and watched the horrific visions of New Orleans. Of course I did. Didn't you? MSNBC, because it is such an OUTSTANDING (insert sarcasm here) news organization, interviewed children today.

Oh hell. Seriously. I'm I am in hell.

I sat on the couch and cried for over an hour watching these kids. As a human who is completely surrounded by kids, I have an empathy for children matched by maybe Mother Theresa. When another child hurts, I can feel it. All those kids who lost their parents in the tsunami, cried directly into my heart. I wanted to go bring them all home with me. I can take care of them.

No, I really can't.
I would like to be able to though.

This little boy on MSNBC was giving his very frank point of view, and I wanted to go give him a hug. I wanted to bring him a Big Mac. OH, and I wanted to give him a bath.
I hate it when kids are hurting. They shouldn't have to hurt. It's not fair to them. They haven't lived long enough to accrue Karma. Why do they have to deal with this?

I apoligize for yet another Katrina post. I kept thinking I was going to hold off on posting until this has passed, but that's not really fair either. I am a teacher. It is my job to educate. There are millions of displaced people, and thousands of them need education. That is what I do.

If there is anyone who knows how little old public servant me can give a hand (aside from giving more money. I have to go get my little girl a Bratz dollhouse, she made me so friggin proud when she gave her money *$120* to the red cross. She had been saving for a while.), please let me know. What else can I give?

Air Conditioner? Please?

2005-09-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

All of us that work for my school district received a letter stating that all of the schools in our district were starting school with working air conditioners. We were thrilled to death because in the four years I have been in that school I have never had a working air conditioner at the beginning of the school year. This year my a/c worked, but it was pouring out very humid air. It made my posters curl up, and it has destroyed all of the lamination on the documents in my room.
However, I was the only one in the sixth grade hallway with a working air conditioner. So I was pretty closed to getting lynched. I was afraid that the entire sixth grade was going to start bringing their students into my classroom because the heat everywhere else was impossible to handle when there are 30 teenagers in the classroom!
One of the other teachers called one of the news channels. They did a pretty big story on my school and how difficult it is to teach when it's 90 degrees in the classroom.

The principal at my school took that very personally, and hired an independent contractor to come in and fixed the air conditioners at my school. She did get angry with all of us. Apparently we aren't supposed to complain about the heat in our rooms.

Funny thing, the air in the main office has been working fine.

Ok, so these strange people (who smell like cigarettes, and it's driving me crazy!!!) have been in and out of my classroom all week. They keep coming in, staring at the ceiling, and then walking out. Really, it's pretty funny.

Today I had to give a pretest for an SQS project that the science department at my school is doing. It has 100 questions and most of my students are going to freak out just looking at the number of questions. They are all multiple choice, and the questions are general knowledge, which they should know anyway.

Today, however, the stress was greater because there were a bunch of men in there staring at the ceiling. Not only did they stare at the ceiling, but they also decided they needed to vacuum out my ducts ( I hate the word "duct"). It was pretty loud. My poor students. It's 800 degrees in my classroom (ok, not really 800, but it feels like it!!), they are taking a very intimidating test, and some random men are vacuuming (LOUDLY) in the ceiling.

Sigh. What does a public school teacher do?

Deal with it.

Hey, this afternoon when I left, it was nice and cool.

But......the edges of my papers were curling up again.

Wish in one hand, shit in the other.

Public School Daze

2005-08-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

The lovely joys of working for the public school system includes the lightening fast response time from the maintence staff.

Could you sense the sarcasm?

The air conditioner went out in the middle of last week. The entire sixth grade hallway is not only missing the cold air, but yesterday the system started blowing warm air at us. By early afternoon it is easily 85 degrees, and by the end of the day today, it was over 90. Pubescent children are very good at generating heat too, so we were miserable during the final two classes of the day.

The instructional coach at my school came in to visit during my 8th period class and said I should try to find a cooler place to hold my class, so we moved into the hallway. For some reason it's cold out there. My students were very grateful for the cool air, and it helped to keep them interested in the day.

I bet they will get the air conditioner fixed right about when the weather turns and we will be needing the heaters!!!

Normalcy??? Normality?? What should I call it?

2005-08-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

So it's Monday morning. Again. Seems this day comes around about once a week. I am usually well rested on Mondays, which means that my huge number of 11-year olds is as well. They are always very perky first thing in the morning. Today was also the first time I had seen this group of children since August 19. Due to our block scheduling, I see my students every other day. With my absences last week, I missed both of the times this group of kids came to my classroom.

They had tons to tell me. Apparently my substitute was the devil. Yay. The first one was ok, but the second grew horns and turned her head all the way around. She may or may not have had projectile pea soup vomit. They weren't too sure about that detail.

Do any of you remember that about your subs? It could have been one of the Playboy playmates, but when the teacher comes back, the sub was devil spawn. Haha. They make me giggle.

My fourth period class was the only class I received a bad report from. So they received a tongue lashing. They were very good for today, but we'll see how long that lasts.

The crowning moment today, however, came during my reading class. This class really didn't follow directions when I had a sub, so I was pretty irritated with them. While I was trying to explain to them why I was so irritated, there was this one little boy who kept trying to explain to me how wonderful he was and how he shouldn't be getting in trouble with the rest of the class. He finally got irritated with me because I was ignoring him, and he kicked his backpack across the room.

Oh dear.

I sent him to go sit in the hallway while I finished chewing out my class. Then I sat at my desk to write my own behavior report for this child. As I was writing the report, the instructional coach came into my room because there was a child on the floor. Now, I have been told for three years that I need to spend less time on my rear while I am at work. So I have made a huge effort to NOT sit down. It's got to be my karma that she happened to walk in during one of the maybe 10 minutes all day that I was actually at my desk. Oh, and even better than that was the knowledge that my pricipal was out there as well. Oh hell. I've been trying to prove to her that I am able to teach for three years. They picked the perfect day to hang out in my hallway.

I can't wait until tomorrow!! Just because if it's tomorrow than today is officially over!!

The sub report

2005-08-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently they stuck two separate substitutes in my room while I was gone. The first sub is one I know well and have complete faith in. Last year when he subbed for the the very first time, he gave away all of my supplies. So after a not so pleasant discussion about that, he has been wonderful with my classes. When I was told he would be my sub, I was thrilled to death.

Then I got back to school yesterday after my three day bereavement leave, and I was thrilled to death to see that there was a pile of foldables on my desk! Woohoo!! The sub followed my lesson plans. That was so exciting for me, because it is a rare day when the sub actually does what you want.

I opened my desk drawer to get a pen and start logging in all of the assignments on my desk, and all of my pens were gone.

Sigh.

I guess I got the well known sub for the first day, then this other woman came in. She followed my lesson plans exactly as they were written down. I was very impressed with that. However, she gave away my pens, pencils, paper, and almost all of a box of 6,000 stickers. I took a deep breath yesterday morning and tried to weigh the good and the bad.

It is really wonderful to have a sub who is willing to follow lesson plans. Many of them bring in a book and expect to be able to read all day. So this sub was a godsend. She managed to accomplish everything that I had written down, including the "extra" stuff that I left in case all the students finished the first assignments. I was also pleased to see that there were no major behavior problems in there while I was gone. That also says a lot about a sub.

I do have some issues with my supplies being gone though. Many of the supplies that I have in my classroom I purchased on my own. It's hard for me to educationally justify buying a box of 6,000 stickers, so I just got them on my own. The pens, pencils, and paper came from the school district's warehouse though, so that wasn't out of my own pocket, but out of my classroom budget. My classroom budget is pretty tight, so I was rather irritated about the supplies going as fast as they did. I do not ever give my supplies to my students. They are required to pay for them. If they give me the item back in good condition at the end of the day, they get their money back.

I put in a new warehouse order for pens and pencils. I will probably get my supplies around Halloween.

I decided that I would rather have a sub that follows lesson plans.

So thank you to my subs while I was gone. I am very impressed with the work I received when I returned.

Still not back to normal

2005-08-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have made an effort to keep my location to myself, because nobody really needs to know where I teach, just THAT I teach. So I can't explain why I have been gone all week because it would give away my location. Although most of my readers know where I am.

This has been a very emotionally exhausting week for me. I wish I was small enough to crawl into my mom's lap and cry. However, I have two other little girls curled into my lap and they have been crying this week. Weird how "adulthood" hits you in strange ways like that.

I have not been at work since Monday, so I cannot update on how my sub has survived the week. I promise that I will tell you how it went as soon as I can. This weekend is shaping up to be quite the busy weekend for me, so I don't think I'll have time until Sunday afternoon to get on here again.

I wanted to take a minute and say thank you to a few people.
First, to the neohippy guy, or whoever he is. I didn't want to link him, because I don't think his blog deserves a read. He made a comment in his blog that I was scary because I spelled two words incorrectly in my profile. While I don't appreciate the form in which his criticism was sent, I do appreciate the criticism. I updated my profile information and I believe that it is indeed correct. I also appreciate that in his attempt to defile an unnamed teacher, he linked to my blog, thus increasing my traffic and also my revenue. Thank you very much hippy dude.

Thank you to the folks at Gazoo. I received my weekly member email and I was not only mentioned, but also linked. That was a nice gesture, and after the day I had previously, that email hit the right "feel good" spot.

Thank you to my husband's colleague Nate, for reminding me how wonderful my husband is.

And I wanted to say thank you to my brother. This morning I was an emotional basketcase and there was nobody in town who I could call to talk to. So I called him. He was home, and he listened as I cried and I made him cry. I think I would have been stuck at the side of the road for hours if it wasn't for him.

The first sub

2005-08-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm terrified.

We have had a pretty tragic week in my family, so I have to take the next three days to go to funerals.

I can only hope that my sub can read. It doesn't seem like any type of reading skills are a requirement to be a sub these days.

Please think happy thoughts for my classes this week. We need all the positive energy we can get.

Oh, and thanks to the oldbaldguy at Gazoo.

A Silver Lining

2005-08-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a particularly hideous day for me. I attribute the turd-ness to the end of the first full week and I will start over on Monday with a perky attitude again. However, after my reading class yesterday I was ready to throw in the towel take up prostitution.

It's a big class, that is the first grumble concerning this year's reading class. I should have no more than 14 and so far I have 19 in there. They are all low readers and they also feel that they CAN'T read, which always makes for a fun kid. I have this child named Andy who believes he would enjoy living in an anarchist society. I asked him if he knew what that was, and he said no, but the symbol looks cool.

Ok.

They came in after lunch, they sat down, and they talked. I stood in the back and I waited. They talked some more. I waited some more. I could have easily put an end to it and remained patient, but I didn't. Instead I grabbed the teacher's manual for a REALLY old chemistry text, and I dropped in very hard on the floor. It was loud, and it got my point across. 19 little heads bobbled and turned towards me. 19 little faces looked like I shot their dog. I scared the crap out of them, and I felt totally ok with that action. I am not ashamed, so don't bother reprimanding me.

We had a discussion about their behavior and why they felt it was ok to sit and talk for ten minutes while the teacher waited. One of the students did bring up that I didn't make an attempt to gather their attentions to me, and he was correct. I retaliated with the age old, "you need to be prepared to work when the bell rings" comment. That includes sitting still and not talking. They all agreed that I was correct. Their assignment for yesterday was to write an eleven-sentence paragraph explaining to me why it is important to be prepared without their mouths shut when class starts. I haven't read any of them yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Then the boss lady distributed our paychecks. This is the first paycheck with the new raise on it, and I really wasn't sure what it was going to look like. I slowly folded the crease, then tore off one of the strips. I did the same with the following two before I carefully opened the green paper that held my riches for the next two weeks.

I had trouble standing.

This paycheck is by far the largest amount of money anybody has ever given me to do something called "work." I felt like the blisters on my big toes on BOTH feet, the way my voice went from strong and solid to meak and hoarse, the pain that I am currently experiencing in my claves is all justified. I actually got paid to teach.

Now bring on the payday happy hour.

I will see you all next week!!

The first full week......muhahahahahahaha

2005-08-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

I received an email from my brother that said he checked my blog and there was nothing new. He was wondering if something was wrong with the site. Teehee. No Bro, the site is fine. I, however, am officially insane.

I sat down at home after school today and took a deep breath. I haven't done that all week. I looked at my kitchen and realized that I can't see all the way to the other side. There is a small path leading from the door to the hallway, but on either side of the path is stuff. I can't even describe what is piled up in my kichen. A carseat, a couple of backpacks, a box full of old magazines (which was supposed to go to work with me three days ago), mail, pom-poms, an old laundry bag, and empty cartons of beer (we try to recycle, but instead the recycling piles up in the kitchen). School started and my housekeeping (which was bad to begin with) went south.

And I realized that I haven't eaten since yesterday evening. Sigh.

Welcome to the 2005-2006 school year.

I don't work during the summer so I can spend time with my kids, so going back to school is a bit of an adjustment. I'll get it all worked out by May, I promise.

Let me do a bit of an update, and this may take awhile so make sure you've got a drink.

The first few weeks of school are always a scheduling nightmare, so most of the teachers don't do any heavy duty work until the second week. This week I have had my students interview each other and do an artistic representation of the person they interviewed. It is awesome to see what they come up with, and they are always relieved that the first assignment is a drawing. I know what you're thinking, it doesn't really have anything to do with science, but being the brilliant teacher that I am, I was able to relate this assigment to the scientific method. If you'd like to know how I did that, email me and I will send you my lesson plan. I have had some awesome stuff turned in. I use this artwork for the "student centered" bulletin board. You know every good teacher is supposed to have a "student centered" bulletin board right?
Please, like everything we do isn't "student centered."

Each teacher at my school also teaches a reading class that is supposed to be leveled. I teach a lower level class, with second to fourth grade readers. Unfortunately, in sixth grade there are a bunch of students that haven't been tested on our system and I had some readers in there that REALLY didn't belong.

We finally took the test yesterday.

I have 19 students total in that class. 11 of them are reading at the right level to be in my class, three of them are considered non-readers, and five of them are reading at the sixth grade level. In the five years I have been teaching, I have NEVER had a student test AT grade level. So I really don't know what to do with these students. How horrible is that? I have kids that actually KNOW HOW to read, and I don't know how to teach them.

I am ashamed of myself.

Thankfully they are taking the grade level readers out of my class and giving them to a teacher that knows how to handle kids that can read. I need to stick with my letter recognition students. The ones that can read scare me.

I have a few students to mention at this point. The first we will call Edgar. This poor child has me for science and for reading. He is one of those that gets to be removed from my class. Unfortunately, he isn't going up. This poor child is a non reader. Seriously. He had no idea how to pronounce my name, and he left out at least two sounds of my last name. I am almost embarassed to admit that my school district let him get all the way to 6th grade. However, he is the first child whose name I remembered. If you are a teacher, you know what that means. If you aren't a teacher, it means this kid is a pain in the ass. He's a good pain in the ass though. He's not mean at all, he's just, um, dumb.

Oh lord my karma is gonna kill me for saying that. I'm a teacher, I should probably not call my students dumb.

Ok, Edgar is behind. By a lot.

Then there is this little girl that we shall refer to as Sophia. She has been in my class since day 1, so it's not like she's new. And I need to give you a bit of background before I continue with this story.
My school works on a block schedule. So the students are given 8 classes, and we only teach 4 a day. They go to 1st through 4th periods on "A" days, then 5th through 8th periods on "B" days. Math and Language Arts is every day, and the rest of the classes are every other day. I've got seven groups of kids (six science classes and one reading class), and then a prep period every day. One of our prep periods is for "professional use." We will do training, parent conferences, Academic Improvement Plans, or gripe sessions during the professional preps. The other is for personal use. I use it for naps.

Now, that means I have seen Sophia twice before today. Twice is enough to remember what teacher is in what room and what period that student has that teacher for. At least, it is for most students, but not all. My professional prep was today (today was a "B" day), first thing in the morning. I rarely make it into my classroom before the bell rings, but this morning I was there a little early to put up a few more posters. The first bell rang and I went about my business until the door opened. This little girl walked in, followed by an enormous suitcase on wheels and a horrible odor. She reminded me of Pigpen from the Snoopy cartoons. She came in with a little cloud around her.
She went right to her assigned seat, got out her paper and pencil, and got ready to work. I watched all of this trying very hard not to laugh. I know, I shouldn't be teaching. Not with the sense of humor I have. I figure I need to find humor in any situation, otherwise there is no point in life.
I waited to see if she was going to figure out she was very obviously in the wrong place.
She didn't.
The tardy bell rang and she was still sitting there waiting to be instructed. So I asked her if I could point her in the right direction. I, of course, needed her schedule to help her find where she was supposed to be. She insisted that she was supposed to be in THIS room at THIS period. She said "I am in room ** with Mrs. **. This is room ** and I don't know if you are Mrs. ** or not, but this is what my schedule says."

Ok

The thing that bothered me about this conversation is that she had already been in my class twice so far, so she knows that I am Mrs. **. She was looking at me like she had never met me before. I was totally baffled. She refused to let me see her schedule so that I could help her out a little because she was so sure she knew where she was supposed to be. I was needing to be in a meeting so I needed to get this kid out of my classroom and I had no idea what else to do.
Thankfully, the teacher that she has for that particular class watched her come into my room so she came to check on her. Phew.
But then again, how sad. I had no idea how to react to that poor girl. She confused the crap out of me.

Then there is my seventh period class. I have had a bad history with my seventh period classes, so I came into this year with a poor attitude where seventh period was concerned. I feel bad for those kids too. They haven't had a chance to be good or bad to me. They just showed up. Today after my reading class and before my seventh period, I locked the door to my room and went to the bathroom. While I was in the potty, I had an anxiety attack. It was WEIRD!! I don't even know these kids yet, but the simple fact that they are in my seventh period makes me dislike them already. I have been very open with them about my previous four years of seventh period classes. So when I walked out of the bathroom, one of the little boys came over and put his arm around my shoulders and said: "Don't worry, we won't be as bad as your other seventh period classes."

I almost burst into tears.

I love my job sometimes.

If you made it to the end, thank you very much for reading. Please let me know how I'm doing. I know Bro will, and I love getting the comments.

Somebody explain this to me.

2005-08-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Your Political Profile

Overall: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

I found this on David's blog, and so I went and took the quiz. I'm not entirely surprised that overall I'm 50/50. To me that sounds about right. What do you guys think?

A Weekend Full of Thoughts

2005-08-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

I should be writing lesson plans. Instead I am surfing blogs. I love getting the comments on my blog and I want more of them. So, in an effort to increase the traffic to my blog I have joined quite a few traffic sites. In order to gain more traffic, I have to surf through other member blogs. Some of them I have found really interesting, others I wish I had never run across. Either way it has been an interesting afternoon. Unfortunately, I have responsibilities that extend beyond my seven hours in the classroom every day. Honestly, my day has never ended when the bell rang at 3:00.

There are usually papers to grade, parents to call, lesson plans to write, pencils to sharpen, emails to respond to. Sigh. I have never worked a 40 hour week, yet I work far more than 40 hours a week. Can somebody please pay me overtime??

This weekend I have lesson plans to write. The principal at my school has decided that she is going to be more strict and review the teacher lesson plans on a quarterly basis. She is asking for all lesson plans to include daily objectives, to what standards we are teaching, what materials we will need to successfully complete the lesson, an itenerary for the lesson, and an end of lesson assessment. I'm ok with all of those components because I use them all in my lesson plans. For five years I have used a very detailed lesson plan form and I have had other teachers balk at how much work goes into each lesson.

In the end, I ended up with the upper hand. I can pop out one of my "overly difficult" lesson plans in about two minutes. I have trained most of the other teachers at my school on how to use this lesson plan, and they are taking ten to fifteen minutes per lesson. Practice makes perfect. After five years I am quite good at this format. So while the rest of the staff is scrambling to complete the detailed lesson plans for the first quarter, all I have to do is plug in the dates.

But that is only for my science classes.

This year my principal is asking all of us to write the same detailed lessons for our reading classes. Most of us have treated our reading classes as a joke since I have been at this school. It's a forty minute class that feels like it lasts for three days each. I have been drawing blanks for three years on how to teach this class, so this year I am going with a very scripted program that takes all the work out of having to plan for this class. This scripted program is my sanity's godsend this year. There is a light at the end of the SSR tunnel, and it's name is Soar to Success.

So I guess I shouldn't feel that bad about surfing blogs.

Oh, on a more personal note. And I swore I was going to leave my personal life out of this blog. I have a personal diary blog. I don't need to add my personal crap to this one. HOWEVER, like with any other career, my profession has a HUGE impact on my life. There is never a time when my "teacher hat" will not be on my head. I can run into my students at the mall or at the movies, and I will always be their teacher. I don't get to leave my job at my job site. I will be the teacher forever.

Moving on, this morning I was supposed to go to a training at school. The principal swears up and down it is a voluntary training, but she never really means it. So I got stuck. My oldest daughter had her first football game today, and my youngest had her gymnastics exhibition. Of course these are all at the same time. It's a typical parent conundrum, but add in the job training and I felt like I should just go stick my head in the sand all day and attend none of these functions. What would you have done?

I ended up at the gymnastics exhibition. The kid is three. Can you imagine something more precious than a three year old doing a balance beam dash? Yeah, me either.

Work will just have to deal with being my WEEKDAY activity. I have to give some of my time to my children.

Now, if only I could figure out how to spend some time with my husband and fix whatever it is that is killing the intimacy between the two of us.

One Down.....

2005-08-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

One hundred and eighty two to go. Sigh. I suppose counting down to the end of the school year isn't the best way to start a school year, but after the day I had today I can think of no other way to describe the way we got started.

We are horrible with schedules. We register the students on registration day and the returning students and all who pre-registered received their schedules. So one would then figure that the only trouble would be with the kids who didn't pre-register. Unfortunately, after four years at this school I fully understand that 95% of the students will have problems with their schedules. On the first day of school the entire student population needs a new schedule. It creates havoc, and it makes for a very exhausing experience. My poor 6th graders are expecting everyday to be as chaotic as today, and I even heard one little girl say that she didn't want to come back tomorrow because she so confused this morning. And the 6th graders are so, um, fragile. If you look at them the wrong way they burst into tears.

Speaking of sixth graders, I have to make a first impression note. I have been at this school for five years and I am used to a particular type of student. These kids are from incredibly poor backgrounds where the parents don't really care about the educational benefits of school, to them it's a break from being the parent. Honestly, it's a bleak outlook on my demographics, but it's the truth. Not for 100% of the students, but for a large portion of them it is. So I expect to have to explain to my students how to put together a sentence and how to end that sentence with a punctuation mark. THESE ARE 6TH GRADERS!! 12 YEAR OLDS!!! So I start with them today the same place I have always started and they got irritated and asked me to stop babying them.

I have no words to describe the feeling that washed over me this morning when I heard that. So I stopped talking and let them work independently, and an even greater feeling became me when I saw that they were doing exactly what they were instructed to do. Never in the first week of school, let alone the first day, has that ever happened.

I think I now need to retire, so then I can end on a good note.

Then reality struck and most of the class turned in today's paper without a name.

Three hours of classroom time is not enough

2005-08-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day back for the entire staff. Our admin provided breakfast for us, and in typical teacher fashion, almost everybody was late. So breakfast started late, then the meetings started late, and the entire day ran about twenty minutes behind. Is it that difficult to make it to work on time.

We spent the morning listening to people talk. First we talked about the new special education incusion setting at my school. Then we talked about the schedules. The principal introduced all the new teachers, and said congrats to those who had good things happen over the summer.

Then we had to go to our department meetings. Unfortunately I am once again part of the science department. I like the science teachers at my school, but I don't want to be one of them. I want to go back to language arts where my passion lies.

We were then given the afternoon to work in our classrooms. NEAT.

Except that after working in my room for three hours I am nowhere near ready to go. I have a ton of stuff to do, and there is no more time for us to work in our roomsbefore the kids come.

I do know that one woman, who had no right to assist in making this decision, said that if three hours isn't enough to get it all done, then we need to come in on our own time.

Hmmm, I don't have any of my own time.

So pooh. What do I do now?

A "Thank You" to my state's legislators

2005-08-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

I ran out of coffee this weekend. I rarely run out of coffee. For me that is about as bad as when a soriority house runs out of toilet paper. So early Saturday morning I dragged my very hungover and not too happy butt down to the, *gasps*, local Starbucks. I ordered myself a grande Carmel Macciato (and I know I didn't spell that right, but I don't really care). The man in the speaker box thanks me for my order, then asks if I would like to add the daily newspaper. As my normal "no thanks" begins to fall out of my mouth, my brain intercedes and I say sure. At the window I hand my cash to the annoyingly perky 17-year old cashier with the cute butt (damn her) and she hands me my coffee and my paper, and I drive my not cute butt back home.

What? What's this I'm reading in my daily newspaper? There is a huge article about the tax-free weekend. How in the name of retail did I not have previous knowledge of this? One of my memory minders is about to get fired.

In a fury, I got myself, my very tired husband, and my oldest daughter ready for a back to school shopping spree. I am more than broke, however, a bounced check is worth a tax free weekend.

Off to retail therapy.

I bought so much stuff I didn't even have anywhere to put it. All of the back-to-school purchases are being stored in the middle of the kitchen floor. I want to take them out, and touch them all. I love school supplies. Pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, paper, binders, folders. I love them all. It's weekends like this that remind me that teaching does have it's perks.

So thanks to all of the state legislatures that pushed for, and won, this weekend. Every teacher, every student, and every parent appreciates what you have done for us.

And I'm back

2005-08-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

I will never be ok going back to school on the very first day. I will always wish I was still laying in bed staring at the ceiling, and quite frankly, bored out of my mind. I spend the days of the summer trying to figure out how I'm going to spend my days. Yet when school is back in session, I hate that my boredom has been taken away from me.

Today was a professional development day. As a teacher, we are required to continue our learning throughout my entire career. Today we discussed a certain reading "program" called balanced literacy. From my point of veiw, it's not really a program. It's more like common sense teaching. You start off modeling the skills you want your students to know, then you slowly work yourself out of the picture until the kids are doing it on their own. Sounds like a no-brainer right? Unfortunately it must not be, seeing as how we had to do an entire day of training on how to incorporate balanced literacy into our reading classes.

Every teacher at my school teaches a reading class, even the P.E. teacher.

I had many trainings on balanced literacy when I was in college, hell I had an entire class on it. I passed it too. So today was like a refresher, which is fine because I'd much rather get a refresher now than when I have 17 6th grade faces looking at me. I cave under pressure.

There was of course more grief at the old school today, seeing as how the only thing that teachers do better than stealing is gossiping. However, I will not post it. While I fully admit that the gossip and grief that I go through is VERY normal and adds to the frustrations of my job, I also know that if I were the one contributing to somebody else's grief I don't think I'd want to read about it on the internet. I am still in my original classroom, and that's what matters. I can deal with the rest of the grief.

I asked my instructional coach today how I could improve upon my job. I said to her that I need the first thing that comes to mind when she think of me. She says I need to get off my ass. Seriously, that was what came out of her mouth. Haha, guess that means I really do spend too much of my time at my desk.

And here I thought nobody noticed what I did at the school.

So my goal for the beginning of the school year will be to stay off my "ass" as much as possible when there are students in my classroom. Hmm, does that mean I should start wearing more comfy shoes?

The last day of freedom

2005-08-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day off for me before I officially start my work year. How odd to have a nine month work year.
I figured I would have a nice, leisurely day at home, resting and enjoying my family.

Instead I am fighting with them. Except for poor Katie. She is the good kid.

Stella decided to pitch another of her collosal fits, and my husband picked that moment to ask me what we were gonna have for lunch. So I'm trying to not allow my child to upset me again, and I have NO idea what I would like to have for lunch.

SOOO, Stella cries more, and husband decides that since I don't know what I want, we're not having lunch today.

I'm so glad today turned out to be such a nice, fucking, day.

Getting my classroom ready.

2005-08-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I fought with my principals for weeks over whether or not I was going to have to move classrooms. I am currently a science teacher, and I don't like it very much. I am a language arts teacher at heart, but because I have a fascination with gemstones, I took gem classes in college and am now certified to teach science in middle school. Lucky me.
So the principals decided to contract for a new science lab, and jokingly last year I commented that if they were going to make me teach science again, I was gonna get the new lab. I never really thought I would be teaching science again. Yet here I am. So when I received word that I would indeed be teaching 6th grade science again, I told the department leader that I had no interest in getting the new science room, and that they should really give it to one of my team teachers because she has been asking for it for three years.

She is special ed.

Special ed is very neglected where I work.

So I'm at a wedding for the science department leader, and of course both of my principals are there. They tell me that I need to go in to the school as soon as possible to move my things out of my classroom so that the woman who is getting my room (even hearing her name is like nails on a chalkboard. I cannot stand this particular teacher!!!) can move in and she wants to get it done immediately. I am floored that they decide to tell me this at a social event, but then I reconsider that this is coming out of the same mouth of the woman that I witnessed, oh wait, writing that would be considered gossipy.

I of course, get quite angry. I don't want the science lab, and I don't want this horrid woman in my room!! So my team teacher friend and I start a nice camaign to get what we want, and thanks to some wit and hard work, we both got what we want and the only person in the cold was the h woman nobody really cared about anyway.

*Note, I removed some of the original post, because I forget that some members of my staff may be reading this and don't necessarily need to be reading what was written there. If you had already read what was there, please know that I went ahead and took that piece of information to the state board of education and asked for advice on how to handle it further.

And I shall take even greater pleasure in being in my classroom for another year.

And I shall take great pleasure in knowing that TEACHER will not get my beloved classroom.

And I'll make sure I voice my pleasure.

About my blog

2005-07-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so seeing as how I have a blog, I should probably do something with it besides assume it will work as my personal journal. So, I think I could probably devote it to my wonderful job as a sixth grade teacher. Yes, I have chosen a profession that is emotionally fulfilling while being horribly irritating, and it is also putting me in the poor house. Yay, and guess what folks: I got back to work in six days!

So, I have to get myself emotionally and physically ready to go back. Financially, going back to work is one of the biggest strains. There are so many needs of a teacher that the schools simply do not pay for. So I end up shelling out about 200 bucks at the beginning of the school year in order to get started. I need markers (sharpies, they're the best). I need posterboard that I can do my own information on. I need stickers. I need construction paper for the first two days of school. If I waited for the school to get me these things, I'd get them in January. I need copy paper. I need chalk, and chalkboard erasers. Because I am a science teacher this year, I also need materials for science experiments. None of this will come from the school itself. So yes, it does cost a lot to be a teacher. And unfortunately, society doesn't place much importance on it's teachers, so I'm broke on a regular basis.

Getting ready emotionally is another story altogether. I keep thinking that someday those people that make laws concerning education are going to actually figure out that they are giving us impossible expectations. I have a notebook of forty pages things that I am "required" to teach my students before they leave my classroom. As a science teacher, those requirements are less than they were when I was a Language Arts teacher, but it still boggles my mind. I have 35 minutes a day with my students, five days a week. I'm supposed to fit 180 skills into 7000 minutes of instruction. Hmmm, that amounts to....one new skill a day. Right. ON TOP OF THAT, I am supposed to teach them test taking skills. There simply isn't the time. I spend ten minutes a day on a school mandated test prep program, which essentially leaves me with 20 minutes a day to teach. That isn't even enough time to set up for a lab. So while there are a ton of wonderful things that I do on a daily basis, I essentially do a job that sets up the employees for failure. At the end of every day, and again at the end of the week, month, and school year, I know that I missed something. Or that one or two children just didn't get it. It kills me. Everyday. There is so much more I could do if I had better resources, better administrators, and more time to simply teach. Instead I have admin that wants to ignore problems and use the same old, tired patch to fix the same breaks. It never ends.

So why do I do this thankless job? Five years ago when I got my first teaching job, I had a particularly difficult student named Kyle. He was violent, disruptive, vulgar, abusive, and incredibly intelligent. He threw a dictionary at me on the first day of school, and later in the school year he threw an entire student desk at me. He scared the crap out of me. But, he and I worked through it, and I developed a good relationship with his father and we managed to get his emotional problems some help. This year he is going into his senior year of high school. He calls me periodically and updates me on his life. He has straight A's, he plays football, and will be going to college on scholarship after he graduates. He says that my involvement in his life was the turnaround for him, and wants me to know how much he appreciates me. Even if he is the only one that feels that way about me, that makes it all worth it for me. There will be at least one student every year that looks at me with that face full of hope and awe because I am the teacher, and I am there to teach, and to them, to help. As long as that student sits there, I will be the teacher.

This is Brandi's fault.

2005-07-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

I went to go make a comment on Brandi's blog, and here I ended up with a new bloggin location. Sigh. Well if I don't tell anybody about this one, then I essentially use it as my journal. So Brandi will know, but that's it.