My list of things I cannot change (or ”brought to you by an insanely bad day“)

Things I cannot change...

1. The ability levels of my students. Yes, some are functionally illiterate. Yes, some do not speak English. Yes, some are homeless and have never been pushed in school or have not been there most of the time. Yes, most don't have 2 parents at home telling them to do their homework (this really does help). I can't fix that. I must work with what I'm given.
2. My administration... because they suck. Yes, they are always looking for a quick fix and never really pay attention to what needs to be done to help the students. Yes, they want only 20% of my class to fail... even if 25% don't show up. Yes, I've been told to raise my grades despite the fact that my students can't pass the end of year assessments for my subject. Yes, see before mentioned "thing I cannot change."
   
3. The general inability of my school to have supplies or working equipment. 'Nuff said.
   
4. My health. It sucks right now. I'm always tired and grumpy or in pain and on drugs.
5. My students' general dissatisfaction with the fact that learning is work and not always fun and games like they've been led to believe.
   

Things I can change...

1. The attitude of my students toward school insomuch that it can be positive and kind.
2. My professional approach to problems that will always end up with me feeling like I haven't lowered myself to the level of those around me (I will remember that I'm an adult).
   
3. My students' appreciation of science and biology.
4. My students sense of academic self worth (that maybe they *can* do this).
5. My students' hope for the future and in themselves.
   

Thoughts about leaving my inner city district (or ”wracked by guilt and shame“)

I think I may be done with teaching in IPS.

The kids are great (thought they need a lot of help), the lower administration usually is out to help the kids and the teachers, and there is definitely a need of good, experienced, and fair teachers in this area. However, the upper administration makes teaching so difficult that it's almost not worth the fight.

Examples of ways that my life is a living hell of bureaucracy:

1. I have a classroom monitor from downtown sent in to examine if I have the correct amount of posters and that they are all up to date - also... a whole meeting where an hour of my life was spent chastising the teachers for the incorrect use of take (type and style) on said posters. That's just inane.
2. Having to do ATTENDANCE twice each day for each class and emailing the list of students who I have never seen. Um... there's no way to do this other than creating an excel spreadsheet and copying the attendance online to it each day. There goes a half hour of my day.
   
3. I'm not not only supposed to monitor the hallway each and every passing period (I, apparently, don't get to pee all day) but I now have to - during class - poke my head out and make sure the bathrooms don't have students doing graffiti.
   
4. I'm being professional observed to see if I'm monitoring which students are in dress code and which are not. I get in trouble if any student has the following: sagging pants, any electronic device (iPod, cell phone, portable gaming system), hooded sweat shirts, sweat shirts, non-dress code colors, and head coverings. I get in trouble should any students be in these things.
   

Now, the meetings that I have with my Academic Dean each day aren't bad. However, nothing really gets accomplished there other than him updating us on what's happening on the world of our school. That usually translates to personal development where people are brought in to show us slideshows and then one month later we have to provide a list of professional goals. Now, if I did that to my students nothing would get done. You need to remind people of deadlines - especially when they have a lot going on in their lives like many teachers do.

It's not like we aren't spending all of our time grading, creating lessons, tutoring students, doing attendance, and all of that.

Of course. We just sit on our butts during class and do nothing. Whee.

The nice teacher next to me (or ”Praise the Lord - one who doesn’t make me want to stab myself in the eye“)

I had another headache today – though it wasn't a true migraine but rather just a bad headache. The nice gentleman that teaches architecture next to me was walking in the hall and looked intoo my room. He's adopted the habit of looking into my class to make sure that I'm OK during and that the students haven't eaten me yet.

He saw me on the floor because I was exhausted. I was leaning against the wall in a little ball because my head hurt and I had 3 more periods to teach yet. It was exhausting. He kindly poked his head in and checked on me. It was nice of him to do so.

He's one of the few teachers in the building that doesn't make me want to stab myself in the eye when they talk. Teachers are some of the most bitter people that I've ever had the misfortune to meet in my life.

In communicato (or "schools are supposed to informt he teachers' of what's up!")

Today was an extremely irritating day in my teaching life. There’s a huge football game downtown in the venue where our Superbowl winning team plays. Apparently, our football team from the School of Legion are playing there tonight. Now, I’m all for fun and games to get the students excited about school spirit but it’s just odd. Apparently, all of the students that are leaving for the game are going during last period. Also, the teachers have supposedly been told that they need to not give the students any homework over the weekend. However, I was not informed about this in advance so I gave the students a quiz that day. I am so frustrated with the communication issues that I constantly see in schools. If a business were to function thsi way then it’d go under. I guess that’s why our public schools are in peril.

Also, I’d like to know who the person in charge was to decided that our students should leave school during the day to attend something not academic. This is a total waste of our students time and for students that are so close to not meeting the academic standards of a high school diploma then that’s really an issue.

For those teachers like me that didn’t get the memo that we weren’t supposed to assign homework then the students are in trouble. The buses that leave to attend the game will not permit the students on them to have backpacks or anything else larger than a handbag. All backpacks and books must be left in lockers. The buses will not be coming back to the school, either. The students have to leave their things in their lockers until Monday morning. It is not very good for students to not only loose class time but have to leave their things on campus for two days. The buildings will be locked and the students will not be able to get their things even if they wanted to!

Actually, I’m just really annoyed that my schedule was disrupted. There’s an OCD part of me that hates it when one of my classes is off. If I teach something in one of my classes then I like to teach it in all of my classes or I’m out of sorts all day.

Remember when life wasn't nuts? (or "I work in Bedlam")

Today was the first day that I’ve had to have my mother and step-father come to drive me home. As a person who suffers from migraines, occasionally in class I get sick and am unable to perform my function as a classroom teacher. This would constitute a medical emergency on my part because I physically can’t keep performing my job.

Today’s fiasco was started by the overhead projector and cornell notes. In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, my room is severely ill-equiped for the education of children. There’s no dry erase board, no usable chalk board, and no overhead projector of any sort (dry erase or for a computer). Actually, there is an overhead projector for a computer but it is currently broken and I have nothing to get it to work with. It’s a system that looks like it’s about 20 years old which is fairly interesting since I didn’t think they had overhead projectors then. Also, the whole apparatus is locked and I can’t figure out how to get into it.

So I solved this problem by using my liberated projector that was I got last year from the collection of materials that was going to be auctioned by our school district. Last year, with about 2 hours notice, I was informed that downtown was going to get rid of a bunch of materials that were not requested by teachers or were old technology. This is absolutely absurd because so many classrooms are in need and could use materials, old or not.

This year, my room is one such example of a classroom in need. The room has nothing usable and I can’t even rearrange the desks to suit my needs. The students are all in desks that look like they’re from a lab circa 1953. I’m so frustrated with screaming my notes to my students and having to repeat myself every 20 seconds that I brought in my projector and set it up with the rickety old screen at the side of my students’ desks. Yes, at the side. All of the students have to swivel their heads 90 degrees to see the screen. Those behind the giant cement pole in the middle of my room don’t have a clear view and have to physically pull their stools out to attempt to see the notes. Let me tell you, this really increases student achievement right there. Some days I feel like I’m being tested by God in this room. if I can teach here and grab their attention, then I suppose I can teach anywhere. OK, there are probably classrooms that are worse, but I don’t care to to think about them.

At any rate, I had to stand in front of the projector with my laptop all day to bring the slides up for notes. The reason why we are doing so many notes in class is because two of my five classes do not have books. That is pleasant. For the rest of the classes, they have a middle school text for a high school Biology class. I’m not amused. So, I stand with my little laptop in front of an extremely bright projector all day. This made little miss teacher have a migraine in 7 hours.

It would not have been so bad if I had been able to leave right after school. Unfortunately, we had our monthly small school meeting. My school is so large that the different buildings are all small schools that have their own programing and slant on education. While it’s true that I love my boss and think the staff at my small school is very nice and attentive, I really could have done with out a meeting on that particular day. I managed to drive home without throwing up but it was a close call. My significant other was not pleased at my state when I literally fell through the door of our home.

Another average day in Bedlam.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

After an exhausting week I have learned some things about my new school. I have learned that not just one but two fights can break out in the same classroom in one day. I have learned that it takes time after the summer to develop the muscles that are required to stand for 9 hours a day again. I have learned that without those muscles that I want to cut off my feet and boil them until there’s only bone left. I have learned that I miss my old students and I wish I could see their smiling faces in my room again. So many of them became like an extended family for me during the day. They were my daytime children... or more like my nieces and nephews because I wasn’t able to really discipline them like a parent. I couldn’t hug them like a parent - though I wanted to when they were sad or did really well. I know I probably got too close to them and I hope to do better this year with maintaining my professional distance, but they were such cool and funny people with interesting lives. During the course of this week, I have learned most of all that I am really out of practice but it comes back like riding a bike. I was afraid over the past few weeks that I would not remember how to teach and I’d be terrible.
Also, just for a daily moment of humor - my mother and step-father came to my school to bring me the skeleton that I liberated from my last school. My step-father took the time to clean him and fix him for me and my mother put a tie and baseball cap on him. They got stopped at the gate when they were bringing me my skeleton and the poor guard on duty didn’t know what to do with the two people bringing what appeared to be a dead body seat-belted in their car into my classroom. My mother forgot to mention to said guard that the skeleton was a replica and not real.

Exhaustion... (or... should I go back to research?)

I am totally exhausted. I keep trying to think of wonderful and exciting activities for the kids to get involved with the first few days of school but I really can’t manage to think of anything. I know that I should have thought of this long before the start of school and been lesson planning like a demon to get ahead but I got out of the practice of being diligent. Actually, lesson planning has never bee my greatest skill as a teacher. Yes, I am able to come up with great lessons when I feel like it - but that’s usually not more than a few days in advance of the day that I’m planning on executing them.
Why am I exhausted, you say? Well, it all has something to do with the fact that I’m extremely nervous at having a bunch of new kids on my roster. It’s insane for me to think that I have 200 new names, personalities, and background stories to learn. I’m trying my best to be optimistic about it, but frankly I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have much for classroom discipline right now because they don’t know me or have any investment in my teaching so they don’t care.
Wow, I guess this is now the “other” teachers feel. The teachers to whom I am referring are the ones that I pass in the hall that throw busy work at the students day in and day out. They are the teachers that give out crossword puzzles and worksheets photocopied from a book that doesn’t really apply to what they’re teaching. I know each of them has his or her reasons, but it must be horrible to have classroom discipline when the kids don’t know or respect you. I can’t imagine.
Right now I hate my job because the kids don’t respect me yet. I groan at the thought of getting up and going in for another 10 hours. That was not the case last year at the School of Apathy. Granted, I was exhausted from my teaching load, trying to get everything done on time, and my graduate classes, but I liked being around the students and found it energizing. I hope I can get some of that back and soon.

Welcome Back...?

The students have all come back. By “all,” I mean those that were registered and ready to go for classes. I’m missing quite a few students and I’ve been advised by other teachers in my transition to teaching program that it would be best not to start teaching material until next week. The theory behind that one is that the students will not be caught up and in their correct classes for some time.
However, the chaos of the first few days of classes is NOTHING compared to where I used to work, which will forever after this point be called “School of Apathy.” I have termed it that because the majority of the teachers and administration there were filled with such an overwhelming aura of apathy that I had to limit contact with them lest it infect me, too. The first few days of classes there resulted in such massive pandemonium that I’m frankly surprised that some students made it to class. My first two days of teaching were as a substitute there and I just stood in the hallways and directed the hoards of students that were wandering around the halls lost, confused, or having social hour. It was amazing.
Here, there are not that many students out in the hallways and those students that come late to class generally show up within the first 3 minutes of class starting. I don’t know if it’s the new method that I have to get them on task when they start but it’s amazing to me that the difference between two schools can be so vast. My old school, during the first days of class, had people just wandering around everywhere and taking advantage of the large proportion of bodies in the hallway to skip class. Nothing ever happened to them. At my new school, which I have termed “School of Legion” because of the amount of students there, the kids get thrown out of the hall by our Academic Dean - who thus far seems to be an excellent boss.

Welcome Back and get a kick in the face...

Hello to my adoring public... (insert maniacal laughter here)

Everybody's favorite slightly insane science teacher is back on the warpath... my goal this year is the same as last year - to get some kiddies learn-ed. I'm sure that I'm probably failing in that respect but I know that the students and I are ready and able. Or at least I am. Or at least I'm here.

Some background info for those that are interested: Over the summer I got diagnosed with endometriosis. What's that, you say? It certainly isn't a walk in the park. I'm really irritated because it's going to be interferring with my teaching which is a GIANT no-no in my book. I have to have surgery in the next year to get my body parts back to playing nice with each other. This will be a major surgery and if done during the year then it will cut into my teaching time. I *hate* having subs in my room. The kids walk all over them and everything gets turned into a giant mess. I really don't like being out for a month or so. I'm hoping that I can swing it so that I'll have the surgery as close to the end of the year as possible so it doesn't cut into my teaching schedule. You know what's also a giant bummer with all of this - I'm theoretically finishing my master's degree right at the same time so the surgery couldn't be during a worse part of my life.

This has been impacting my mood for the past month so I've been slightly distracted.

At any rate - here we go. Get your padded rooms and strap jackets ready... it's time for another school year.

Finals - what worked and didn't.

Goal of the Week: Plan curriculum for next year, yo.

Thought of the Day: Finals - what worked and didn't.

I've started thinking back on last year in preparation for this next year. So far, I've been thinking about what did work so I can repeat it and what didn't work so I can never look back. Hear's what I think of the most recent finals past!

Here's my idea of a great way to test student knowledge with students that do not study: posters! OK, many people may not like this because it sounds too infantile but it is SERIOUSLY what I had to do in Grad school.

I think that the students should be able to pick any of the topics that we covered this semester and research it in more depth to create a poster and present it to the class.

They need to learn to create projects on time, neatly, to follow directions to the letter, public speaking (even or especially through fear), independent research, and creativity (for designing and creating their own poster). These are real-life skills that they need to practice.

However, after having the finals week schedule on the board, in bright red marker, for two weeks AND giving them in-class time to work on their posters students are obviously still not ready. In fact - many students are blowing this off. I need to take measures against that next time by showing examples of sucky work and what it gets you.

On a positive note, having different parts due on different days worked so much better than last semester's "due all on one day" approach. Also, going over the rubric with the students helped them know what to do tremendously. I'm now a convert of rubrics and going over them with the students. I toyed around with having the students have one "practice-presentation" to show them how to do better the next day and it was a disaster. The students kept asking me why they were doing the presentation twice and which one was "real." Great idea with horrible execution.

What makes sense to me doesn't always make sense to others. I need to get in more presenting practice but this wasn't the way to do it.

All in all - the ones that are doing the work are mostly doing much better than last time. I credit it totally to them knowing the expectations in advance.

The true last day of school....

Thought of the day: The true last day of school....

Today was the official last day of school. The kids aren't here but the all of the teachers have to show up. They did this at the end of last semester as well. I already had my grades done so I took the very last day last semester to clean my room, read a book, and catch up on my comics online. All in all, it was a very slow and relatively unengaging day.

This semester I decided to try something different. I invited my favorite students from this year for a mini-party. Since I was no longer their teacher, I figured that I was allowed to have favorites. That was my logic, anyway.

This had some disasterous results and I intend to never do it again. First of all, my students had the logic of "well, if you're no longer our teacher then it's ok to talk to you as if you were our age." All of the respect that I had garnered throughout the year was lost. That's a cultural difference, I suppose. I know that I still talk to my teachers with the upmost respect just because it's hard for me to think of them as really people and not prepetually *my teachers.*

Second, it was a logistical nightmare to get the kids to agree to what they wanted to each and to order food to the school. I wanted to do Chinese food to have something different for them, but that was horrible. I don't know how many places I must have went through before I gave up. I ended up ordering pizza - and it was fun to have the workers in the office call over the intercom to tell me that my pizza had arrived. That made me chuckle.

At the end of the day, I decided that I like the idea of having a small party with food at the end of the year for my students that really had made an impresson on me but for the sake of safety (and having my students realize that I can't treat them as friends even if school is over) I will do it at the end of the school year but before school is out.

As always, through the ups and downs I still don't regret changing professions. I love my work, though it is difficult, time-consuming, and an ethical quandary.

Everything seemed right.

Goal of the week: SURVIVAL in the CRAZY...

Thought of the day: Everything seemed right.

Mass pandemonium. That is all that can be said about today. I had my mother come in to make the kids smile. They do love her so. I had kids stay in my class all day and watch movies. Only about 10 or so students showed up for any of my classes.

I was planning on showering the kids with cookies and brownies that I had made for them while they finished the movies that we started yesterday. I grossly overshot the amount of cookies that I would need since most of my students were not in attendance.

Things that I have taken away from today: most of the teachers done come in. They have taken a personal day. This sends a message to the students that the day is not important. Also, I'd like to comment on how many of my students stayed after school to help me take stuff out of my room. The former teacher that I replaced also showed up. He walked into my class during the day and without a word to me started unloading things that were his. I had no problem with him removing his things, but he was disrupting me with my students which did irritate me. He finally said hello and a few other things to me, but still. He came in with 3 other people to help him unload his stuff. That was odd. I guess he told other teachers that the stuff in his room was fair game because I had another teacher just walk in while I was with my students and start pulling the maps off the walls.

When all was said and done, my mother and I had an interesting day. I will take the memory of the kids staying after school to talk to me and help me pack up my room in my heart for a long time. I didn't cry today. I made it through without crying. Actually, I was happy to see the kids move on to better things. It seemed right. Everything seemed right. Finally.

This was not what I expected...

Goal of the week: Survive the last week of school! I will not cry I will not cry I will not cry.

Thought of the day: This was not what I expected...

So, in all of the ins and outs that have happened this year, the last day of school was something of a surprise - just like everything else on this journey. I expected at least a touch of likeness to my average day teaching with the exception that there would be no more days for that year.

Oh, was I wrong.

For starters, most of the teachers were not there. They took the day off and had subs in. Most of the subs were not taking attendance... so think mass pandemonium. There were kids in the halls, kids just explored classes that they thought were interesting, kids leaving whenever they felt like it. The inmates were running the asylum.

Just say no to apathy.

Goal of the week: It's the last week of school. I think that I'm completely exhausted and in danger of being mentally burned out if I don't take better care of myself. My goal this week should be to just chill and try and make it through.

And to think that I used to look forward to finals week when I was in high school. I liked the studying and the organizing that was done at the end of the semester. It really helped me to pull everything together. I wish I could get that back again or just impart it to my students. They are so apathetic about the entire process.

Thought of the day: Just say no to apathy.

1. In most of my classes my attendance (out of 29 to 31) is between 6 and 9. I expect last period to have under 5, since that's how many of my students showed up yesterday.

2. The students have taken their finals - though some still have trouble with the idea of a due date. I don't understand how so many of my students can be sick on a finals week. What is going on with that?

3. Most of my students don't study. This is a huge problem. They just don't care nor see the point in being educated. They think it's an annoyance that the teachers, administration, and government just think up to complicate their lives.

4. The longer I teach here, the greater the degree of burnout. It has to do with the more order that I impart in my classroom. The order is necessary because it helps me to get through my days at a teacher and not get sick, but the kids fight against it because it makes them have to work more.

5. I really need to do a Year-End-Review. I've come a long way as a teacher and I need to think about that. I think I should do that on Monday when I'm here for records close-out day. There were things that I did in class that I swore I'd never do - like lie to students, make-up grades, allow some students out of the rules and not others, throw out a test that I created and gave students, have movies in class on more than one occasion (espeically ones that weren't at all related to my subject), and ignoring students.

6. I'm worried that I may have been infected with the APATHY that is rampant around this building. It's like it's in the air and the amount of time you are exposed to the building increases your risk of becoming completely and totally apathetic. You start to not care about how your classes are doing or if you are teaching well. You start to get tired and walk around the room less. You just get so tired. I think, actually, it's not the apathy in the building that's getting to me but rather that I'm just tired. Each day when I come in I've just gotten used to the excuses, the lack of work, the constant complaining. It takes an emotional toll on you to be positive, caring, and open-minded despite so many lies, so much lack of effort, so much unabashed disrespect for education.

7. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood for no reason. I used to feel such pleasure at just seeing my students and seeing them in the room - but it's not enough anymore. I want to see them excel. They are wasting their minds and it hurts me. Perhaps this is the way that I can keep my distance next year. It's absolutely imperative that I do not get as attached to my students as I did this year because it interferes with my ability to teach them well. I need to keep my eye on the ball and remember that they are my students. My job is to educate them - with respect and fairness, but first and foremost to educate them.

Finals are no longer fun but the kids are learning.

Goal of the week: Survival. I really need a nap.

Thought of the day: Finals are no longer fun but the kids are learning.

My finals last semester were horrible. I had so many students come to be inside and outside of class to finish their finals. They changed the number and content of their group members up until the day of the presentation. It was funny, but a horrible mess and the actual presentations didn't contain any information that was credible. Other than being amused, it was worthless.

I'm really, really annoyed by the students that MISSED my final and then are mad at me that I'm having them retake it (which I shouldn't at all) after school. Because I didn't set up a procedure for my students prior to the final for how this would be handled, then I won't dock them for it. After all, I didn't say which people who missed the final would be able to take it and which would not. However, for next year I have a plan.

Well before the final - students will be warned that missing the day of the final is not an option. If they miss the day of the final, then they need to have a parent/guardian sign one of my permission slips allowing them to take the final late.

As for projects - if the due date has been posted for any day that the students have been in class then they knew when it was and they have to take it. For projects, the due date that was posted is the due date. If the students miss it then they miss it, unless they get one of my permission slips and have their parent/guardian to sign it.

Being an effective teacher is difficult. It certainly does take all of the fun out of the process, but in the end having the students learn is worth more than a couple of laughs. That, and when I'm dead and gone I want the students to respect me for being an educator and not for making them laugh. One is definitely more important than the other.

The kids this year treat me like I'm one of them - unless I start acting like a "teacher." When I do that, I walk into school and pretend that I'm a Nun at a Catholic School. It helps me get into character. I need to be caring but tough on them. I need to be proper and obey all of the rules. I need to do all of these things and constantly be on top of everything. It's a tough job and I'm still getting the hang of it.

Maybe I'll get the hang of it before I hang myself in frustration. Some days I'm more optimistic than others...

Finals - Day Two

Goal of the Week: Survival!!!

Thought of the Day: Would the students with their work done please stand up?

Let's re-cap.

Friday of last week I gave my students time in class to work on their projects and ask me questions. Then we had a long weekend during which the students could finish their work. They were warned to have the presentations ready to go on Tuesday at the start of class because we were doing practice presentations. Ok... that sums it up.

Today, of the students I have that showed up there are FAR too many with no work done. I told them to do their practice presentation from memory so they could get credit on it. That cheered some of them up into doing the practice presentation.

I'm worried about how tomorrow will go. Some of my students are already done. Many look like they have not even started yet and will throw something together tonight. All have the potential in the to do better. I have such bright students. I just wish they had the confidence and drive to do what it takes to excel. Hopefully, I can push them that way. :)

Memorial Day - No School!

Memorial Day - No School!

Finals - Day One

Goal of the Week: In a word - survival.

Thought of the Day:

I'd really like to say that I'm making a difference by eliminating illiteracy and fostering critical thinking skills in the youth of today - but it's just not true. I'm so exhausted I hurt down to my teeth.

The worst part about this is that I feel more pathetic about my performance than I feel exhausted and sick. I want to do so many things in class but my brain's creativity and my body's abilities do not match. I just want to sleep the minute the kids leave until they come back in again. I don't even want to waste the time to drive home - just let me curl up on something flat and pass out cruel world!

This is not overly dramatic. I'm done. I've worked in FDA labs under deadlines and super-high pressure, researched an entire masters degree in a month, been through Grad school, read the entire literary works of 5 authors (published and unpublished) in 2 months, and have consistently bitten off more than I could chew and chewed it my enitre life.

I have met my match and more.

I give up. M'aidez. White flag. I'm out.

For all teachers, professors, TA's, and other educators out there: I salute you. You are the few, the proud, the chronically overworked and underpaid, the thankless, and the knights of educational virtue. We fight a constant battle against a tireless foe - ignorance.

True ignorance is " lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned or uninformed; unaware." It is not stupidity, as most people seem to assume. Rather, it is the state of never having been exposed to knowlege that would make you aware of your environment or navigate better in the world around you. It is the mortal enemy of those brave (or insane) knights of education and champions of thinking.

When I think I can't take another minute of excuses, tardy students, ill-prepared students, cheating, chronic failing, obvious disrespect for education, and general antipathy for discipline and achievement then I remember this: it's not about me. It's about the next generation and more to come. Humanity has made the gains that it has only through building upon the collective knowlegde of those who came before. To not be exposed to that collective knowlegde - regardless of whether it is absorbed or not - is a sin beyond measure.

Who knows which students may be listening and decide to make the next great addition to humanities' collective knowledge? Who knows which students in my class may walk away more aware of the beauty and mystery in this world? Who knows how many students might remember something important in a time of need?

Teachers make a difference only by striving constantly, through pain, sleelessness, exhaustion, and resistance to fight ignorance. What type of warrior would I be if I only fought when it was easy?

There are two paths in this world: one is easy and one is difficult. Only one is right. You guess which.

Over and out.
- S.

Exhaustion sets in...

Goal of the week: I was doing so week at getting organized until I realized that I'd been concentrating on getting my procedures back in place so hard that I let my binder with all of my lesson plans in it fall to the wayside again. I always let me lesson plans slip. I have no idea why I do that.

Thought of the day: Exhaustion sets in...

I think it's time to admit that this job is a lot harder than I have been willing to give myself credit for. I think that because I do the same thing basically all day long that it's really not that hard. I tell myself that it can't be exhausting because I'm just walking around and talking to kids all day. How hard can that really be, right?

I think that I don't really give myself credit for the fact that I teach 8 hours a day. I start before school and teach after school. I teach on my lunch break. I don't stop or take breaks. I use my prep time to run around like crazy and prep for the next day. I let the kids into my room during every single one of my breaks to try and raise their achievement and help them every chance I can. Their schedules are so nutty that it's what you need to do to help them out. Most of my students work after school so you can't always help them then.

I stay after school to grade and organize when I finally get a few minutes to myself once all of the craziness is done. Sometimes, that doesn't start until after 4 when school is out at 2:30. I love my job but I guess I just don't really add up how exhausting it can be.

When I go more than a month without a break I feel like my body is made of lead and I want to die. The weekends don't get here soon enough and I don't have enough energy for my students. That is a cardinal sin in my book. I need to be in tip top shape for my students at all times or else what am I doing here.

This last week in the prep week before finals. Then finals are here. After that, we have Memorial day off and Tuesday through Friday is finals week. Then we're done. For the summer. I can already here Alice Cooper in my hear crooning "Schools out for summer!" It always made me so sad when school was out before. Now, I'm sure I'll be depressed and sad but all I can feel right now is numb. Nix that because all I feel numb but painfully hopeful that I might get rid of this headache that I've had for the past week because I can't seem to get enough sleep.

My heart cries for my students.

Goal of the week: Getting organized. How's that going for me? I need to make a list of the classroom procedures that I use in my room and how effective they have been for me this year. Some procedures have been horrible and I have discontinued them. Some have been great and I've permanently adopted them. Some, I really need to work on because they are great but I need to be consistent with them no matter how difficult it is!

Thought of the day: My heart cries for my students.

I'm absolutely horrified right now because of the test day and test corrections. My students, no average, scored about 25 to 28 out of 50 on yesterday's test.

In fact... when I handed back the graded test today most of the students were unable to figure out their percentage on the test. There continued to be unable to do so even when I told them that each test question was worth two percentage points, or that you take your score and multiply by two. I demonstrated on the board but this math is beyond a lot of them.

I now have headache. Or a heartache to be more precise. My heart hurts for them. So many of them don't understand how serious it is that they are missing the vital skills that they need.

I can't teach quickly enough to make up for the skills that they lack. There's just no way that I can give them all the skills that they need. Most of my students don't have the literacy skills to read a textbook written at the 9th grade level. They ask me what words like "critical" and "atmospheric" mean.

It's not that they're unintelligent. Quite far from it. My students are bright, just ignorant in the truest definition. They just don't have an education and it makes them seem like less than what they are. I just want to cry from the sin of it. They are such wonderful people and they could be so much more with an education. They have so much potential and they're wasting it.

I don't know how to make this clearer to them. They all want the easy way out and there is no easy way out. Not for life and not for an education. This much I have learned in my first year teaching in this rare and forgotten place on Earth. These students have been taught to take the easy way out by everyone around them so much that it's scary.

No one at all in their lives or around them has shown them what hard work means. Or what determination is. Or how to devote yourself to becoming better and evolving to perfection. Or to DISCIPLINE. Someone needs to show them. Someone.

I made a student cry.

Goal of the week: Organize. I'm working on it. Yesterday was bad but today will be better.

Thought of the day: I made a student cry.

Yesterday, while my students were reviewing for the test, I got to talking with a student who I refer to in my mind as "the gentleman gangbanger." He's super intelligent and one of those kids that gets into a *bunch* of trouble but is just a wonderful person. I love his company.

He started talking to me about his life. I don't know why the kids do this and it always astounds me that they open up to me about such personal things. I'm so afraid that I will do something to ruin or abuse this wonderful gift of trust that they are giving me.

This poor kid. His life has been filled with pain and death. He was holding strong and was not letting anyone, including me, see how much pain was beneath the surface. He was using that trick that men (yes, older men) use when they are in great pain and they turn their faces 3/4ths away so you can't see how much they are holding onto their faces so they don't lose control. The secret is in how much they are holding onto their faces. Poor baby. It broke my heart and I wanted to cry. Almost everyone in his life has died. Most of his family except his father and brother are dead. Car accident took most of them. His mother was first some time ago. His year it was his girlfriend and his cousin.

He turned away and just said "it makes me wonder sometimes why so many bad things happen. I just have to think if I'm a bad person because these things keep happening to me." Then he stopped talking and looked down.

I needed to say something. I just paused and thought because it needed to be right. It needed to be right. He needed the right thing to make it better.

I told him: "For what it's worth, D----, I know it's not much, but every day when you walk in here I smile. I smile because I love having you in my class. You are a wonderful person and you make me laugh because I think you're great, even when you're exhausted and you just come in and pass out (because that is kinda funny)."
"I know sometimes it's hard. But trust me - sometimes in life the most horrible things happen to the nicest people and you are one of the nicest people. I think you're great. You always make me smile and laugh and I look forward to having you in my class whenever you're here."

Then I got distracted by another student coming up and asking a question and a disruption on the other side of the room. It was 2 minutes before I could look around for D--- again. He wasn't in his seat and I got panicked. I looked around and was worried that I'd said the wrong thing and upset him to where he'd left the room. You have to be careful with students that are in crisis because you don't know what will upset them.

When I looked over, he was over in the back of the room by the trashcan with his back to the room. He was rubbing his eyes very covertly. He stayed back there for a few minutes.

I didn't say anything to him the rest of class and let him have his space. I think he needed it. He is a very strong kid and he needs to maintain that image.

I like that one. I like that one immensely. Please, please, please, whoever is up there and listening, please, please, please... protect that one.

My students don't study...

Goal of the week: Getting organized. Whoohoo. I'm working on this bit by bit.

Thought of the day: My students don't study...

My students just walked in for a test that they were warned about yesterday and the day before (and that we went over together) and said "it's ok - I guess I won't take it now... I'll take it later."

I'm stunned. Actually, I'm angry.

Actually, I'm mad at myself.

People treat you the way that you want to be treated. I've taught my students that I can be treated this way. I've taught them that education is worthless and that it's something that you can put off and disrespect. I've taught them that by offering them these opportunities.

And this is something that I will change next year.

I don't believe in changing things halfway though the year or semester unless it's an emergency. This is not an emergency because it's an established procedure. It's not really hurting them.

Ugh.

I think one good thing has come out of this. One of my students just told me "Ms. D., I think this is the hardest test you've ever given us. Usually I don't need to study and I can just take the test and know everything." I'm challenging them more but not to the point where it's difficult. It's a good balance.

Goal of the week: Getting organized again! How's that going... I think it's going fairly well... actually.

Thought of the day: Apparently, my "just talking" method doesn't work any more.

I used to do this at the beginning of the year. Actually, I used to do this all the time when I started teaching. It doesn't really work for my classes anymore. It sooooooo doesn't work. It so doesn't work so much. SOOOOOOOOOOOO doesn't work.

In teacher-y speak, we call this the "Socratic" method of teaching. It's where you just have a discussion in class. I used to love this method, but if you don't do it in class for awhile then the kids really get out of practice.

I love this method and it's a shame that I've gotten out of practice. I loved it in high school when I had a teacher that used to do it on Friday's. In my Geography class and Psychology class in high school (who were both taught by the same teacher - good old Mr. McMillian) on Friday's it was current event day. We had to come in with a newspaper article to discuss in class. Everyone had to take a turn talking about it for credit. It usually sparked some form of debate and we could bring in anything to talk about. The teacher was an interesting person because his ENTIRE room was wallpapered in the covers form time magazine.

Did I do the wrong thing getting too close?

Goal of the week: Getting back on a schedule.
Now that graduate courses are over for me until mid-June, I can afford some time until school is out to get myself back into my procedures as a teacher. That way, I have good teacher habits that I can remember to start myself off right next year. Yippie!

Thought of the day: Did I do the wrong thing getting too close?

Ok, that's sort of my thing in teaching. I get close to them over time and that's how I maintain control in my room. I don't order, I ask. I don't yell, I say "please." I do everything with respect and they respect me. However, I often wonder if I've gotten too close. Have I lost my professionalism? Do the students see me negatively when I hug them when I see them crying in the halls after school? Is that bad? When I ask about their families is that bad? Am I setting myself up for failure by getting to close to them? I wonder about these things.

I guess I'll have to learn in time. I don't want to be a push-over.

I don't want my students to know too much about my lifel. It makes things complicated.

I don't want my closeness to them to interfere with my job.

Suckage. I want to be a good educator but I want to make sure they're all ok as well. It's not a good thing. However, you can't be both a therapist and a teacher. The two just don't mix.

I think I'm being sexually harassed by a girl.

Goal of the week: Back to basics - getting myself back on a schedule. How's that going for me? I think it's going well. I seem to be going back to my old habits of planning my lessons and adding some new ones of a lesson planning binder (hardcopy with examples like how I did for my D.O.T., because I really liked how it was sitting all there nice and ready to show the students if they needed an example later).

Thought of the day: I think I'm being sexually harassed by a girl.

I really need to control what I say to children.

Case in point. One of my *female* students today told me I looked like a pornstar.

This was, apparently, a complement. I found this out when I responded aghast and in anger that a 15 year old girl called me a woman that took money for sex in front of 16 year old boys. She was shocked and didn't understand why I was upset.

"But Ms. D, it's a complement! Why you be so upset??"

I tried to tell her that were I was raised, that wasn't a complement. In fact, it was an insult to be called a porn star, but she didn't get it. She was just so shocked that anyone wouldn't be happy to be called a porn star.

That was yesterday. Today, she called me a "hott teacher, with my back a leaned back and my chest thrust out." I was leaning back in a chair before class started. In a suit. Ok. I'm a little nervous now. I've never been sexually harassed by a girl.

I was so angry that I told her that is she said anything sexual again that I'd send her to the dean for inappropiate comments. She was quiet for 5 minutes and withdrawn. Now I'm worried that I've done something wrong. I just can't shake that she was making me uncomfortable. Now I'm worried about her and I'm worried that I said the wrong thing. Talk about lose - lose. :(