I *Love* My Job!

Man, they really pissed me off today.

I have two classes. I see each for three hours a day. One class is full of sweet girls who only get a little sassy every once and a while. The boys are a little bad, but entirely tolerable when compared to...

6D. The letter and number from hell. This class is one of the worst things I've ever experienced. It's not just because half of the class is immature, insane, exhausting boys, but because the other half is the coolest group of female students I've ever had. These girls are amazing! They're like a bunch of little adults - so intuitive and just generally with it. And I have to spend all my time dealing with the problems with the boys. The girls are wonderful, and I never get to spend much time with them.

These boys are a bunch of creeps. They fight. They lie. They curse. At me. They sexually harass the girls. And today, they started harassing me! I keep two of the worst right next to the overhead from which I lecture, so I can keep an eye on them at all times. Today I allowed them to work with rulers. These two little pricks kept touching my backside and my thighs with the rulers and their pencils.

I'm at my breaking point. It's a damn good thing that this week is Thanksgiving break, or else it might end up the Massacre of 2004 in my classroom.

Ah, freedom. I'm off to California for the rest of the week, to enjoy the lovely Pacific and lots of time away from nasty teenagers.

I said at the beginning of the year that I loved this age group and would never go back to the needy little ones. I take back all comments of that nature, and would love nothing more than a room full of eight-year-olds to adore me and actually fear me, rather than these hooligans who delight in my misery.

Oh, and another thing for the "Yay! This district is so SMART!" file:

Today we were given a packet, quite obviously printed from an e-mail, along with a paper stating we were to have these packets finished and turned in by the end of the day. With these packets came absolutely no instructions. The packets contained a profile sheet, where the students are supposed to fill in information about their performance on the first round of district Benchmark tests. This was a time consuming and difficult task, mainly because we have one copy of the necessary test information, and 30 people who have to fill out the form. It took me 20 minutes just to explain to one group how to fill out the forms [since, of course, I was figuring it out as I went along!] and then the rest of the day for everyone else to get their packets done.

Meanwhile, my lesson plans for the day were shot, and the kids were rowdy since the task was just so boring. Because we were so rushed, the profile sheets didn't even serve their purpose - to show the students and teachers in what areas the class/student is weak. We were just hurrying through the paperwork to meet the deadline. The only purpose it served was that the kids got a little taste of what MY life is like, filling out complicated forms and data sheets at the last minute to satisfy the whims of some person downtown.

It's so frustrating, because we're supposed to stay with the Scope and Sequence, a document that tells us what to teach and when in each subject. Losing just one day puts you behind. Then, when the district people come and want to know why scores are low or why we're not where we're supposed to be in the curriculum, they don't stop to think that perhaps they are part of the problem!

I realize that teachers have always been overworked and underpaid, but it just seems like there has to be a better way. I feel like I'm strapped to a table, and there are tubes and needles attached to my body, sucking the blood out and killing me slowly. I can't believe people do this for 10, 20, 30 or more years!

I hear it's different working in an inner city school. That when working in the suburbs or in a small town, teaching can be fun. Perhaps I should move. I've been considering it a lot lately. A pay cut, yes, but to not feel like jumping off the top of my school into a pool full of hungry alligators at the end of each day - I'd sacrifice a few thousand a year for that.