Ashamed

I am ashamed it has been so long since I have posted. I am terribly sorry if you have been checking for updates. It is summer, yes, but I could perhaps tell you some of the stories I had not shared throughout the year because I didn't want to post things that were so identifiable.

I will begin posting anew soon, I promise. This summer I have been busy since school let out, taking many classes to add things onto my certification. I am currently in a class and I'm supposed to be researching physical impairment, but I decided to take a mini-break and head over.

Soon! I will be back.

Thanks for checking!

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.

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.

NOT a Good Day

Today is a day that I question my sanity in becoming a teacher.


The children are not doing well, I don't think I have taught them anything, they don't remember anything even if they did understand it once, they don't any more, and they won't be able to show their knowledge on the test. And if I did ever have enough patience to do this, today it's not in evidence.

Essentially, today is NOT a good day.

You know it's not a good day when you've already made yourself a cup of coffee (for the caffeine energy) and then drank your only remaining soda (also for the caffeine) and it's not even past the 1st period of the day.

Examples of things that went wrong today:

• Students I need to talk to are absent. I needed them to finish their tests today, as I need to turn them in. But they are absent. Again. Who keeps their child home the week before standardized testing?
• The kids are constantly arguing across the room. They don't seem to care that I asked them, repeatedly, to stop.
• The children are all sick. So they are grouchy, and really, really germy, and coughing, in a gross way.
• I forgot my lunch.
• I managed to borrow the laptops so the kids can use them to practice their skills online, but the website we use is down. It went down just as my 1st class signed on. It came back up for a bit, then went back down.
• It was down for the first 15 minutes of my next class.

Other things I can't remember.

Today is not a day I will remember with fondness. Nor is it a day I will be glad I'm a teacher. I am normally thrilled I get to be a teacher. I usually love my job and the kids.

But not today.

Parent Conferences

I dread parent conferences.

When I was a new teacher, I dreaded parent conferences for different reasons. I was never quite sure how to judge their child's ability, then articulate this in a way that makes sense for the parent. I was afraid they'd look at me, and immediately want their child moved to another classroom, as I obviously was so young, and couldn't possibly know anything. Especially those parents who scheduled the conference because of the language arts grade.

I didn't really know how to tell them about their child's classroom behaviors, or what to tell them when they asked me how they can help their child improve. Essentially, it just made me really uncomfortable.

Now I'm not so uncomfortable meeting the parents, and I feel pretty confident about what I want to say and how to phrase it. I am not frightened of talking to them, as I used to be, and I am just chock full of the educational jargon that tells me exactly how to say what I need to without being overcritical and harsh.

Instead, I dread them because you simply never know how a parent is going to react.

This year, we have had a ridiculous amount of parent conferences, made even more ridiculous because we have had some with the same parents three times.

Sometimes, the parents come in with a massive attitude, mostly because they are embarrassed they have to be there in the first place. Somehow, in their mind, their child's misbehavior shows the entire world that they are terrible parents, and they have failed.

This is not true, parents. We do not view your child and say that you are a horrible parent. Since they are out of your site, and they are only children, you are not judged by their behavior, especially initially.

After we have met, or after we have communicated in some way about the trouble your child is having adjusting to the confines of the classroom, it does change a bit. When a parent promises that we will not see any of the negative behaviors anymore, and that they will be checking up on their child's homework and study time, but then does not follow through, we then start to wonder about what's really going on.

We still don't assume you're a bad parent! So parents don't need to come to their conferences so freaked out that they behave badly.

I can promise that you will be viewed negatively if you scream at me because your child got in trouble or about their grades. As the oft-repeated, annoying to hear, but ultimately very true expression says, "I do not give any child a grade... they earn them."

Sometimes parents come in obviously nervous, like they're afraid we are going to attack. Once they see how nice we are, the tend to relax, but they still look relieved when they are finally allowed to leave.

Other parents enter and are angry, but not at us. They are furious that their child has made them take time off of work to come and talk to all of their child's teachers. This is always intensified by the fact that it's generally because of unacceptable behavior or a total lack of effort on their child's parent, instead of a genuine lack of ability.

Sometimes the parents just sit there and get angrier and angrier, and you honestly feel bad for the child when they go home. This is especially true if they find out their child has been lying to his teachers and also to them.

Sometimes the parents start interrogating their child right there, and the kids starts crying. Sometimes the parents tell the kid right there what is going to be taken away when they get home that day. The kids tend to cry then, too.

Sometimes they reach over and smack them. Sometimes it's a little disturbing (not abusive at all, just a bit awkward), and other times it's hilarious. Like they bop them on their arm in frustration. Since we often feel like doing that, or shaking them when we don't understand their behavior, it's nice to see.

I guess the whole point of this is parent conferences are rarely something we look forward to, unless we have a large issue and are desperate to talk to a particular parent.

We have four next week, and I'm sure the only reason we don't have five is that they are not allowed to schedule ones on Tuesdays, because those are the days that we are supposed to be have meetings, if we need to have them.

We just had a fairly good one, where the parent seems to understand everything you say, and they promise to help the kid. Of course, the very next day the child was right back to his old behaviors, and didn't have his homework.

Another mother cried, and her son was horrified. He was good for just one full week... but he was perfect that week. Still, he didn't do any homework during that perfect behavior week.

Another recent one was... interesting. The parents were talking about how their child has all these problems, and needs lots of extra help, and we really need to be aware of the limitations of what we can expect in the way of classroom. However, until they meet with us, we had not known there was anything wrong or unusual with her. She was a little silly, but no more than any other 12-year-old. So we are watching her, but her difficulties all arise from her need to constantly talk.

And finally, we had a great conference, with a super-mom, who told us what she's now doing at home to help her son, and it was just great. After we leave conferences like that, we are always so much happier than when we get there.

So I guess that all conferences aren't the same. I guess I should change my mind about the idea of conferences.

I should, but I won't.

It's too easy to remember the ones who tell us horrible stories that just hurts my soul, or the ones who scream at us, or the ones who make things awkward by yelling at their child.

Ah, well. At least there are ones that work out nicely.

Thank goodness!

It Breaks My Heart

Sometimes, stories that I hear about my students (or from my students) completely breaks my heart.

Things I'm not sure that I could deal with, stuff that would break most adults, stuff of my worst nightmares, and these kids just have to deal with it. Since they're so very young, they can't run away, they can't break off hurtful relationships, they can't do much of anything.

It really, really breaks my heart.

Some of my students this year are products of families so messed up, they would be too messed up for those daytime TV shows.

I've had sad cases before in previous years. A kid who was slowly going crazy, and was eventually diagnosed with a mental disorder (one that, fortunately, was helped by medication). A kid whose parents were fighting over him, so much so that we had to watch him wherever he was, so the other parent wouldn't kidnap him. A girl who was being abused and removed from her home, but returned to her parents numerous times before finally having the move be permanent. And others I can't think of right now.

But this year seems to have more than the fair share of kids who have big issues in their lives.

We had a parent conference recently, and I could hardly sit and listen to the parent telling us what's going on in the family. It was just awful, and my poor student has to deal with it; has no other option.

It's almost too much sometimes for me to bear. I want to take these kids home; raise them as my own. I'd quickly have dozens of children hanging around my house, and want to bring home more.

I love my job, and I love how I can sometimes be the bright spot in an otherwise dark young life, but it hurts to be able to do so little for these kids. I don't have money enough to make a huge difference for them. I don't have the authority to stop their parents from taking out their messed up lives on their innocent children.

All I can do is listen when they talk, and try to show them that they are loved; that the whole world isn't like what they're dealing with right now.

But it seems like so little; not much help for them. And it's just so hard.