Too much monkey business.

I've run out of steam and goodwill and every other goddamn thing. I'm very very tired. Too much paperwork. Too much professional development. Too many meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings, and meetings.

I'm burning out because there's too much that we're expected to do and our administrators don't see anything. They just expect more.

Every teacher in my school is under the same pressure and the principal just dumps more on us. More duties. More expectations. More frigging meetings. Do this paperwork. Have it all in triplicate by tomorrow. Oh, and we need to meet after school and during your prep and during your lunch. UNION! We need a UNION! If we had one this might be a bit more bearable. At least our pay would be better.

Wasting time blows

So it's the new year. I'm struggling this week. I have so much to do and no time to do it. The teacher's lot, right? Still, there's only so much work that I can do in a day. I've been up to 2 am for nights on end now doing paperwork, knocking out grades, etc. For all the work, I'm still behind and can't seem to catch myself up. We're all up against it at school and the administration just keeps us in meetings wasting our time. They don't care. They don't value our time. Meetings blow. Time wasting blows.

Bling, smoke, and mirrors

I haven't written regularly in some time. I'm going to be checking in more often. I'm dismayed by the state of education in our nation. The blind are leading the blind. Bling, smoke, and mirrors rule the day. Do you understand the whole thing rides on the cooperation of the children? Merit pay, NCLB, and the Scholastic book order all ride on the cooperation of the children. You play the hand you're dealt. My students are dancing as fast as they can, but when it comes down to it none of them are making it. I have 2 out of 32 that would make it in a school outside of the inner city. I was watching a news story about Houston and their school district. They have merit pay and it is increasing the scores or so they say. Bull! That's what I say. It's all lies. Mark my words!

Chops

My life is improving. My teaching life is not hopeless. I see a future and that was not possible before. I have moments of occasional doubt but that's the same in any profession. What's life without a bit of doubt now and again? My biggest problems are organization, correcting a never ending avalanche of papers, and improving my teaching. Improving my chops. That's what I really need to do.

I have doubts about keeping my job. Am I good enough? How can I get better? How can I help my kids get better? I want them to learn. I want them to get better. How can that happen?

I don't want to let them down. I don't want to let my school down. I want a chance.

Getting better

My new school is challenging me in new ways. I have some behavior problems that are slowly being fixed. Mostly, I need to improve my teaching. I was just staying alive in my last school. Now I need to get my skills up. I'm working and working and working. A teacher's work is never done.

Happy?

I am happy. I don't want to jinx myself so I'll stick with happy. I'm working in a new school and it's not insane. More later. I just wanted to check in. I'll let you know more soon.

Summer savor

Summer is wonderful. I'm just savoring it. Just being in the moment.

Reading, swimming, and drinking (with a little cleaning of the gutters for good measure).

It's already July 12th! Holy crap, Batman! Seriously, the summer is galloping away from me but it's good. So nice to be away from school. No masters degree work either. It's all good. I've been eating a lot of hot dogs, swimming as much as possible with my wife and daughter, and drinking a lot of cold beers. The good life. Time to get back to my book. It's so nice to read for pleasure again.

School's Out!

The kids are gone! The kids are gone! Lordy, Lordy, the kids are gone! Sing it with me!!!!

Thanks for singing with me. Yet another kooky inner-city teaching year is in the books. Just some clean up tomorrow and I am done. Man, there were a lot of hard days. Thanks for reading to whomever is out there reading this blog. I hope that you enjoyed some of this thing. I take great solace and pride in blowing off steam in this way. I'm sure that this has saved me from a couple of nervous breakdowns.

My kids had their party without any disasters. They were magnificent. I enjoyed having a few of them in my class and got to tell them personally about how much they meant to me. That was satisfying. Then they all went their separate ways. I wonder what their summers hold. Some of them have places to go and things to do. Some of them were making up what they were going to do. I stifled a sob when I heard one of my most obnoxious girls making up trips to Great Adventure, Chicago, Wildwood, New York City, and Sesame Place. Her mom's so poor she can't pay attention, let alone pay for a trip to Great Adventure. Susan is a hellion but I felt so sorry for her as she described her fantasy plans.

I just hope my kids are safe over the summer. The bullets are flying in Philly. Things are getting dangerous and kids are getting hurt. I hope none of mine get hurt and hope everyone else is safe too.

Hurray!

One more day to go. Today was a 1/2 day and it was rather enjoyable. I actually got to spend some time talking to my kids. Something I rarely have time to do during the day. Strange to say that isn't it? That's teaching in the inner city for you. You want to build relationships with the kids and it's impossible because there are too many of them and every one of them is SUPER NEEDY. Anyhow, next year I'll be teaching close to 40 of them and I already know 20 of them are identified special ed kids. The remainder will have probably 6-8 more unidentified special ed kids. Forget about having any time to talk or build quality relationships. Ugh!

I'm going to forget about next year and focus on one more day. Hurray!

Babysitting

The kids are getting worse and worse. They hardly listen to me at all now. We still have 4 days left. What to do? I'm just a high-priced baby sitter now.

Carrier Wave Take Me Away!

There's 5 days left!

On the post-teaching summer vacation front, I'm going to get a radio show again on my old college's radio station. I contacted them for the hell of it last night and will be able to do the summer! I'm psyched! I haven't been a dj in 15 years. A short refresher course and I'll be spinning records again on the actual airwaves. What I've wanted to do for sooooooo long! This is going to be an awesome summer vacation. Let's just get there. This is the longest friggin' week in history and it's only Tuesday. Help me, Jesus!

Vermin

There's mouse sh@t all over my goddamn room! It's on practically every surface. Do you know how disgusting that is? My school is filthy. The mice don't even have the decency to stay hidden during the day. They come right out and grab stuff in the middle of class. The cockroaches are all over too. They just do what they want. One was inside of my Macintosh today. You could see its shadow moving around under the opaque surfaces. Another huge one just walked right through the middle of my lesson. I'm teaching about integers and suddenly this museum specimen sized roach is walking through. I stomped him and of course the class went crazy. Vermin.

Today was pretty rough. Just 7 days to go. I was looking forward to some downtime after work, instead I spent the afternoon with the plumber. I read a book as he put in a three handled faucet in my shower. It's always stressful when the plumber is here. The meter is running!

After 2 1/2 hours and almost $400 the problem isn't completely finished. I have to hunt down some stems and escutcheons for this damn American Standard faucet. Ugh! I thought plumbers were supposed to have all this stuff on their trucks to get the job done. Apparently that's not the case anymore.

At least the Cherry Hill Library book sale is this weekend.

Bibliomania

Went to the 2 for 1 Scholastic Book Fair today. I love the book fair. Takes me back to my elementary school days. I love books. I bought a bunch today for me and my daughter. Each week I must buy 10-15 books from everywhere. My house is filling with books. It's a good thing. I have a problem. Bibliomania.

End it! Please!

I really hate my job lately. I want this year to be over. My students don't want to do anything. NOTHING. We still have lots and lots of school left. The textbooks are being collected. Everything is winding down yet I have to maintain the illusion that any of it matters now. The grades are in. There's NOTHING left. Why? End the year early oh great School District of Philadelphia.

We need to get ready for next year anyhow. There will be more than 30 kids in every classroom, less kids, less resources, and less of everything except work, but we teachers have it easy. Remember that.

The Devil Is In My Classroom

Wow were my kids awful today! I had the right idea this morning when I pressed the snooze button 300 times. I hope that a lot of them don't come in tomorrow. The 6/6/06 thing has them all freaked out. "The world is going to end, Mr!" "The devil is going to come!" Couldn't Hollywood make more scary ad campaigns with other dates in them? How about advertising a movie called January 1 - June 20? Really scare the sh@t out of them! A man can dream.

My kids ought to know quite a lot about the devil. Many of them are in league with the devil. It never fails to make me laugh when the worst behaved kids in the class begin to tell everyone else they are going to Hell. "You don't believe in God? You're going to Hell!"

A girl in one of my classes said "God gave me a mouth to use all I want." She was talking nonstop for the entire class. I said "God also says to obey your elders and to love your neighbor as yourself. Two things you are not doing - so quiet down!"

The worst behaved, most foul mouthed students are on intimate terms with God.

Thankful I Don't Teach in NYC

A friend of mine teaches in NYC. He doesn't get out until June 28th! Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ that's too friggin' long! I was just speaking to my wife about why oh why do we have to teach until the 20th. It's pointless now that the grades are done. I would seriously consider taking the gas pipe if I had to continue to the 28th. Thank the Lord for small favors.

June!

June is finally here! There are 12 days left! I can't wait!

Grades

I'm doing my grades tonight. They take forever. The school district computer system isn't the easiest system to navigate. You have to go through window after window after window and you can't see the entire card until you're finished. I have 25 kids. They each have about 15 things to enter on the card not including comments. Each card takes about 10 minutes. That's 250 minutes. That's more than 4 hours. Ugh.

The real problem is the grades are done now and we still have 14 days of instruction left. The kids know that the grades are done and they have no incentive to listen or care or do anything because they know they're untouchable. It will be even worse when we turn in all the textbooks next week. We'll be without any materials and still be required to teach. The kids will go apesh@t then. Why can't the school district input the grades during the week of the 12th? They can take away the books then too. The kids will have more of an incentive to work. At least the illusion of accountability will be there.

I'm just glad the whole damn thing is winding down. I'm tired and want to go on summer vacation. The pool is calling me and I need to soak in it and forget.