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.

WTF?

I just watched a story on the local news about dangers in Philadelphia elementary schools. They showed video footage of children playing in schoolyards. They were beating the sh*t out of each other - pulling hair, pummeling, punching, kicking, wrestling, and stomping. The reporter seemed surprised. The footage could have come from my school. This behavior is playing to my kids. It's all they know. I broke up two kids who were smacking the crap out of each other during recess. "Oh Mr. we just playing." Blood was pouring out of the kid's nose who told me this. The other kid had scratches and the knee torn out of his pants. WTF?

Springtime thoughts turn to gelati.

My kids are getting worse by the day. They sense the end of the school year. They think that nothing can touch them and they're mostly right. I'll never tell them that, however. My administrators have told me in no uncertain terms that I'm to pass my kids. To be honest it hardly matters. If I fail Jerry it will do him no good. All he does is roll on the floor, eat his pencils, and make curses and animal grunts. Keeping him in the same grade will do nothing. He's utterly irredeemable. He's been held back too many times anyhow. He's already ready to drive to elementary school.

My job is ridiculous. Thank God it's Spring. I just went out to get gelati. Mmm. Eighteen days left.

Enjoying the weekend

I'm sitting here on the weekend drinking a cold one and thanking God that there's only about 21 days left. I will make it. It's not going to be easy but nothing ever is at my school. Still, I will get through to the end. Right now I'm working for June. It will be here momentarily.

I hit Tony Luke's today for a roast pork Italian. Mmm that sandwich is fine. If you are ever in South Philly you should do yourself a favor and head to Tony's. Forget Pat's, Geno's, and Jim's. Forget cheesesteaks entirely. That's tourist fare. You need a pork with provalone and broccoli rabe.

Too much

I drove to work this morning and was struck with how Jacob Riis-like the hellhole neighborhood is where I work. Sometimes I drive and don't notice it at all but today I noticed everything and it made it that much more depressing. Half naked children bounding down tenement stairs into the clammy drizzle. No mother bounding out of the tumbledown place after them. Stumblebums, junkies, and pickpockets hugging the bricks, staying out of the rain. Emaciated dogs rooting through garbage in the gutter. Cars held together with chicken wire jostling for position at the stoplights. Angry looking men in pajamas, tattoos, and headwraps yelling at their women in the street. What a place. This is just a typical 8 am trip. All this to see and I have yet to take a swig of coffee or park the car.

Too much to see this morning.

***

On the bright side, the Phils swept the Reds! I hate the Big Red Machine!

Flu runs amok

I've been sick as a dog for the past five days. I hope that I get better soon. I think it's the flu. At least my fever has broken. It sucks when you are sick all weekend. I haven't had any downtime to relax or recharge or catch up on laundry or paperwork. My house is a mess. I have nothing to wear tomorrow and I'm still coughing up phlegm. Ah, the life of a teacher. Yeah, we have it easy.

Here's how easy it was on Friday. I'm sick as a dog in the classroom, the kids are running amok, no one is listening, I'm coughing up a lung. It's horrible. Finally it's time to leave. It's 3:09! They can leave! No one is f@%*ing listening to me! "Will you please just get in line? I just want you to line up so you can go home. Will you please do that?" It's 3:15. They're smacking each other in the head. They're eating their pencils. They're rolling on the linoleum in the pencil shavings near the trash can. No one is lining up. "Will you please for Christsakes act like human beings and show some compassion for someone else for once in your life?" No one listened or changed their behavior. Finally about 3:30 someone noticed that they could have left already. I was just watching them like it was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. After another 5 minutes we finally got them out the door. What is wrong here? How can one teacher be with these kids for an entire year and they behave the same way throughout? Every day is the first day of the year for these kids. They have no clue.

I'm so happy the year is winding down. I just hope I can get better and finish it out on my two feet. It's a goddamn streetfight every day with these kids.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day

I have been so tired these last few days. The kids have been horrible and I just can't keep up, especially in the afternoons. I'm physically tired and mentally fried, too. I just want to get through this week and collapse. I do not care anymore. There are about 30 working days left and I can't wait to get through. I've had enough. I need to rest up and prepare for next year.

This year is in the can anyway and all the kids are going to pass. My administrators conveyed that message to us all the other day. The principal told us to think hard about those kids that we want to fail. Is it fair to saddle another teacher with that kid for another year of sixth grade? Pass them. Get them the hell out of here.

What's the point? I have a reason be tired. What's the point?

Green Tea Mango

I'm relaxing Cinco de Mayo style and eating some green tea mango ice cream from Turkey Hill. Mmm. They should sponsor this blog. Their Phillies graham slam is great too. Perhaps they want to split the sponsorship with the Yuengling brewery. Mmm. I'm going to reach for one of their products next. Enjoy the holiday and arrive alive, don't drink and drive.

Merit pay? F That!

My kids were absolutely horrible today. How do you reach kids that just don't care about anything? What do you do? You tell me?

I was reading the Philadelphia Inquirer today and there was an editorial about the 58% graduation rate in the Philadelphia high schools. The editorial mentioned that teachers who get results should get bonuses. I wonder if the writer has ever taught in the school district of Philadelphia or anywhere else? Teachers don't get to choose their classes. Teachers play the hand they're dealt. My kids care about nothing and respect nothing. They would be perfectly happy just hitting each other in the head all day or spitting spitballs and scratching themselves all day. I would end up paying for the privilege of teaching them if my pay was based on their academic progress. Thank God my pay isn't based on them! Thank God I will get another chance with another class next year. Hopefully one that isn't stocked chock full of maniacs.