Good golly, I'm in a bad mood tonight, Miss Molly. This was a lame Monday. I don't enjoy being in my room sometimes. Mostly on Mondays and Fridays. My students are so mean to each other and that gets me down. They are so negative and it seeps into my bones. I'm with my students more than I'm with anyone. To be around such negativity is rough on me. I'm not really that negative a person. I defy anyone to shrug off the negative waves that I'm immersed in.
I'm up to my neck in grades, paperwork, and meetings. I go to so many stupid meetings each week. The meetings are almost always with administrators who know nothing. Today's meeting was an hour out of my day to sit with a lady with a stack of papers in front of her. Paper lady hadn't read any of the papers in her stack. She expected me to read her the highlights. This lady makes probably $10 - 15,000 more than me a year and teaches no classes. I'm expected to teach my load and perform statistical analysis, too. The meat and potatoes of this meeting: the students are having trouble in language arts and math. How do we motivate them? Hmm? We needed to have a face to face meeting about this? How about letting me alone to do my paperwork? Please? How about letting me alone so I can decompress after my sh%t day of disciplining kids?
I'm really pissed off about my day, actually. What puts it in perspective is talking to the other teachers on my floor. They're all just as pissed off as me. I was cleaning the room after my meeting and thinking about how much I hate my job some days. I was fantasizing about how much better my year would be if some of my students had manners. Fantasizing about how much better my year would be if some of my students were transferred to reform school. I packed up and walked to my car and ran into some teachers who were talking about how they want to write their resignations and email them to the principal. They want to resign because they're so pissed about the lack of concern for the teachers, the lack of direction in the school, the senseless workload, the nonresponsive administration, the lack of support, the kids, the neighborhood, and the deluge of paperwork. It was nice to hear teachers that I thought had their program squared away talking about walking away and never coming back.
I'm not walking anywhere, but I'm going to try again to get the hell out of the inner city. I'm losing power. I'm not sure that I'm making any difference at all. I know this, that the inner city is changing me into someone that I'm not sure that I like very much. I've spent my time here. Done some great things. I've been teacher of the month. I've been the golden boy and I've been a horse's ass. I need a change. At least a different school where perhaps there's some morale?
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1 comment:
Hugs to you, darling. I have a friend here who teaches in a suburban school, and he does seem relatively happier about his job. It's not fair. Those kids need someone as passionate and dedicated as you. It sucks to think it's so broken it can't be fixed (inner city public schools).
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