Gone so Long...

Well, it's been an insane amount of time since I have been blogging... and I feel rather bad. I have some reasons, of course, but still. I am considering whether or not to pull it down, or work on getting things posted. In the meantime, here are some of my reasons for not posting:

-This summer, with the two graduate level classes I was taking, just about wiped me out.

-This school year has made me inordinately angry. We lost our awesome, amazing AP and got someone who's just not as good... or nice.

-Our guidance counselor is inexperienced, so that made for a TERRIBLE start to the year.

-I am confused about how much I can post without hurting the children's privacy. I mean, I don't think my current approach of 'wash everything of a name' is anything that would be likely to cause anyone distress, but if a parent does complain, I don't want to be in trouble.

-As I started back to school this year, I promptly started another graduate level course. The good news on that is I finish the class in about two weeks, and then I am finished with my endorsement! Hooray!

So... I will likely begin posting some odd bits here and there, but we'll have to see about if I get back to posting regularly. I hope so, because I think it's a good outlet for me... but it's been difficult recently!

Next time, I will post about some of the craziness of starting school... it's such a strange time.

Summer Days, and Great Leaders

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted, and I apologize for that. Ending a school year is always crazy, plus I immediately got sick after the last day, and I am starting my summer classes this week, so it's been hectic.

Now, I don't believe I have mentioned the assistant principal at my school before, but she's awesome. She's the type of person who is able to see the humor in what the crazy kids are doing, and yet makes you feel better just for stopping by.

Before I continue about my assistant principal, I wanted to mention the principal. My principal is honestly the best principal I have seen; she does a really wonderful job inspiring the teachers and students, enforcing rules regardless of anything else, and works as a liaison to the community in a way that helps the teachers do their jobs and helps the parents know how to help their children. She's great, but not someone I would feel comfortable ever actually having a chat with.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone feels this way; there are quite a feel people in my school that easily have the type of passing-the-day chats that I would never dream of having with her... but she kind of scares me. Just a little.

My A.P. is the type of person who is always everywhere at once, and always knows what's going on regardless of where she was when it happened. She's always able to give you an idea of how to deal with a parent issue or concern, and doesn't hesitate to take over is she feels the parent is being irrational.

My first year at my school, I didn't feel this way. She was new to the position of A.P., and a little tightly-wound, and she ended up making me a little nervous, never quite sure of what type of mood she was in that day. By Christmas time, however, she was settled in the position, I had figured out how to read her, and I learned she had the same type humor that I have.

She's seriously awesome, and one of the main reasons I didn't think to move to a different school for this coming school year. We have had a major shake up here in our school district, switching around things that I have loved most about teaching middle school, a shake up which made me seriously consider moving to high school.

I decided against it, because I am so happy with the leadership at my school. I figured I would just make the best of the things I hate to stay with the leadership.

Then just this week, I found out that they transferred her to a different school.

I am seriously not happy.

I am not looking forward to figuring out how to deal with a new A.P. With the budget cuts, we may not even replace her, which means that 6th grade will have no administrator, dean, or A.P. to assist with discipline. That will mean the kids will be divided among the other grade levels for discipline, and they will slip through the cracks.

This is not good at all!

And I am left seriously wishing I had applied to the high school which is less than 1/2 mile from my house.

I am not going to hate them before I meet them, because that's unprofessional. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and just wait and see what happens.

But all I have to say to them is this: you have some big, impressively awesome shoes to fill.

You have been warned.

Last Days...

As we close the school year, I am packing up my room, which saddens the kids.

I am also realizing that, for some very inexplicable reason, teachers like to load the children up with sugar seconds before the class switches.

I am not amused by this.

Sugar and kids = bad things.

I was also talking to the lovely lady who processes referrals and she had a stack that was unbelievably thick, both from teachers who have had enough and students who have finished being nice.

Please, please let the year end right now!

Common Sense No Longer Common?

Why on earth do parents let their children see movies that I would not see? Movies rated PG-13 should not be common fare for my students, as they are... not 13 yet.

Unless there is a redeeming feature of the movie (like important historical content), or if the parent has already seen it and was confused about why it's rated PG-13, 6th graders shouldn't watch. (For instance, when I first saw Ever After with Drew Barrymore, it was rated PG-13, but when it was released on video, it was revised to be rated PG).

They just shouldn't.

They are CHILDREN, who already live in a world that forces them to grow up way, way too fast. They don't need this pictures and ideas and words in their heads, especially when their minds are not mature enough to process them properly.

For instance, there simply is not very many students in my class who has not seen Epic Movie. This movie is rated PG-13 for these reasons: crude and sexual humor, language and some comic violence (according to www.cara.org, which is the Classification and Ratings Administration, which gives reasons for moving ratings).

Why would you want your 11- or barely 12-year-old to see anything with sexual humor? They are babies!

Another movie most has seen is 300, which is rated R for these reasons: graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity. Another winner for your 6th grader.

How about Scary Movie? Rated R: for strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence. Most of the kids have seen one or all of these movies.

I am just a little depressed thinking about this. It's bad enough the life some of the these kids are forced to live, and things at home and at school they're forced to see. Why give them even more things to worry about and clutter up their minds?

I tell them I don't think it's a good idea for them to watch that type of movie, but they then go on to tell me what else they've seen, and it just makes me sadder... they have seen harmless movies (like the recent Prince Caspian or Alvin and the Chipmunks) but they have also seen movies I won't watch.

It's just really sad to think about...

Really sad.

Worrying Times...

Due to the budget cuts that effecting everywhere thanks to the housing issues and the recession (especially our area, due to an ill-advised tax cut that is going to cost us our shirts, instead of save us thousands as they promised), our school had a special meeting today.

In it, we learned that we have to cut our budget for next year. To the tune of about $500,000.

I'm sorry, but that's a lot of money.

And since most of the money needs to come out of the personnel budget, that's a heck of a lot of teachers that will not have a job next year.

This makes me nervous.

I am a good teacher. I receive good reports. I have areas I need to work on, but who doesn't? I shouldn't have to worry about losing my job, especially since it's not like we have less students. We are actually getting more students.

We have and awesome administration, and they have been very honest with all of us, and told us how they will tell the people who will need to look for a new job immediately, so they have the greatest opportunity to get a new position somewhere else.

I am not one of the teachers who will not be coming back, and I am very, very grateful.

Still, it's an absolute shame that education should be so underfunded. None of our good teachers should have to find a new job in a new profession, or a new state even, when the number of students hasn't changed and they are good teachers, not mediocre teachers.

I am very sad as I hear about who is not coming back to various schools. It makes me very nervous, even if I am good for this coming year, what happens if more cuts are coming our way? Then it will be even worse, and more teachers will be "released" or reassigned.

I really hope something very positive happens very soon, and this will all be just a bad memory.

I really, really don't want to do another job interview.

A Bad Day

Remember when I mentioned Meet Your Teacher? It's the thing at the beginning of the year that allows the parents and kids to look at their teacher, follow their schedule and get a feel for where the classrooms are located, and so on.

It's the week before school starts. So we haven't seen gotten a roster yet, we don't know the names of any of our kids, we're still setting up the classroom, trying to get copies made, posters hung, and myriad other things that demands attention before school can begin.

Well, we recently had a parent conference with a parent, who screamed at me, and said she had told me that if I had ever had a problem with her child, that I was supposed to immediately pick up the phone and call her, and she would take care of the problem and make sure it didn't happen. That she had problems with her child last year, since midway through the year no work was completed.

I said sure, I could do that. So did the other teachers, back then at Meet Your Teacher. You know, the one that happened before school started. So I didn't know her, or her child, or even their names.

Now, if I was a parent, and I knew that my child had a habit like that, I would have let school get started, then called the teacher and had a little chat about what my child likes to do, and ask if the teacher could keep their eyes peeled for any indication it was happening, so that I could deal with it immediately.

But that is apparently too hard to do. It's much easier to wait until there is about 1 month left in the school year, make a conference, and scream at each of the teachers in turn about how you were not notified that you child was failing.

When it was mentioned that the report cards and progress reports serve as a notification, we were told that she had not "seen any f*** report cards." (not as bad as it could have been; it wasn't the actual word, but it was a pretty vulgar substitution anyway, and I must say it offended me.)

I'm really sorry, and maybe I could have said something to mollify her, but at this point, I shut down. I can't handle being screamed at, I really cannot. I mean, beyond the simple fact it's not polite, she has no right to speak to me in such a manner. I am not her child, I am not her servant. I am a professional, who has a real job, who went to school and worked hard for my degree, so that I could teach these children as I love to do. How dare she scream at me?

This really upset me, and I am still upset. I am not sure what she was hoping to get out of this, but I can assure you I am officially not committed to helping her figure out a solution.

This might be childish on my part, but I'm sorry, and I cannot help it. Maybe in 20 years time I will be more philosophical about it all, but not yet.

Add to the horror of getting yelled at by someone I don't know, we were not supposed to be alone with this parent, as administration has had previous contact with her, and she has been a little aggressive and belligerent. So, we were supposed to have an administrator and the guidance counselor, neither of whom came. I think someone outside of the situation would have helped immensely, as they could have said calming things and explained how it is not acceptable to speak to us like that, and ways to resolve the issue.

Instead, we have no resolution. The parent says that it's our fault her child is failing, because if we had just called, just once, it would have changed instantly.

We did try to explain that we sent home lots of things with her child, explaining she has received a low grade on something, or she wasn't doing something, or sending her tests home to be signed. When we pulled the child's file, it was stuff full of things from one class, then nothing from the other classes. When we showed her that her own signature was on the tests, she claims only one of them, and calmly tells us the rest are forged, and that her child is really good at forging.

Then, she tells us, that's not the problem, though. The forging wouldn't be happening if her child knew that she had received a phone call from the school.

Well, we're sorry, but we did not remember that you had talked to us, before we knew your child's name. So we didn't call, because, and this is the most annoying part, her child is in all advanced classes. So, we should not have to check up on her constantly, as she is in advanced classes. It's the same thing as how we do not have tutoring for the child, since they are in advanced classes, and if they cannot keep up, they need to not be in advanced.

Anyway. It was a very bad day, and I felt sad and snappish the remainder of the of the day. I don't blame the kids for their parents, since they cannot help it, but it's still hard to not see the mom when you look at the kid.

So, anyway. Parents need to remember that the vast majority of teachers really want whatever is best for your child, and if you work with them, and be polite and patient, they are thrilled to help you. I love my super-involved parents. They make my life much easier.

So. Just thought I'd share one of the very very negative things about teaching.

But I still love doing it.

Not sure why sometimes, but I do.