Whiffle this year

I would personally like to find the Texas State Legislator who proposed the school year change that pushed us past Memorial Day and beat him/her silly with a whiffle bat. I feel like I am torturing these kids and myself. They are so far gone right now that I am just a glorified babysitter. Final Exam? Hee hee hee. I swear I am dumbing it down on a daily basis. My kids are losing brain cells by the class period. Whiffle, whiffle, whiffle!!! Whap! Whap! Whap!

Wonder where your students will be in 10 years?

My sister had to go to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled for her cat. When she gave the young woman at the counter the presciption, she was asked for the patient's birthdate. My sister explained that she didn't know because it was for her cat. The woman looked at her quizzically and asked her if her cat had ever filled her presciptions there before. At that moment my sister couldn't hold it together any longer and started laughing. When the poor girl started to ask for the cat's phone number, she collapsed in hysterics. My sister felt really bad for laughing but I am just a little concerned that this person is working in a pharmacy.

Next Year

Middle ground. I can survive without constant peaks and I know the pitfalls of this profession are the unavoidable valleys you run into working with kids. But why can't I achieve a middle ground? Had several weeks of real excitement about next year because I had been told that I could teach a history class and probably some AP classes. This week, belated news that they really wanted me to stay with the 9th graders. Didn't tell me until I had heard it from several other people who had seen the master schedule already. It felt like damage control to me. It probably would have stung less if I hadn't been told from another teacher that they'd just hired a teacher for that position from our feeder middle school. Sigh. OK, I can understand. I am good with ESL and SPED kids. I also know that I tend to get certain kids because I have a good reputation with handling some of the more difficult kids. But come on. Throw me a bone. Throw me some nerds. Please rescue me from freshmen. They are really different now and as any teacher knows, they are "YOUR KIDS" this time of year. But I keep thinking back to October when I had over 170 "STUDENTS" and would have walked out the door if the opportunity had presented itself. Opportunity meaning the ability to survive w/o living out of my car of course. I know I can go home for the summer, take some good classes and recharge those educational batteries. I just don't know if I have the edumacational battery life to put up with another first 6 weeks like I had last year. Too many days of Death Valley. How about a few more days of Hill Country?

Zen and the Art of Biting your Tongue

Designer Jane started telling me about her vacation plans today as if she had never attempted to bite my head off the other day. In the middle of all her jet-setting info, she drops the bomb that her mother is pregnant and that Jane is devastated. Besides the fact that Jane's a freshman in high school and she's probably horrified by the idea that her mother might be having sex, Jane is suddenly confronted with competition. My little Jane has been an only child up until now. Things are gonna change. I sympathized nicely with her and she wished me a good weekend as she walked out the door. Oh well, at least I am a favored chew toy. Glad I was able to not say what I really wanted to say the other day. Just keep chanting, "Summer, summer, summer."

Uncomfortable silence

Some quiet rumors had been floating around that we would have a new department head next year and that the announcement would be made during out meeting today. With the arrival of both our regular AP and the "never seen before in our meeting" principal, we figured some news was about to be broken. Nice nice was made, congrats on the hard work preparing for TAKS were showered and then our dept. head announced she was leaving the school completely because she had decided in Oct. that she could no longer work under the current administration. Silence. Silence. Silence. Introduction of new dept. head. Nice, nice, nice. Everyone have a good day. A massive rush by some befuddled teachers out the door. Boy, I can't wait to see how the next few weeks play out.

Four more weeks to go

Yesterday one of my favorite trust-funded, designer-clothed students was in quite a funk. You could tell just by looking that something was wrong with her. I asked her to come outside and asked if she was okay because I was a little worried about her. Her so lovely response, " Why should you care? I don't care about you. I don't care about any teachers. In fact, I hate all teachers. All I care about is the grade." Well now. That's quite a verbally aggressive tantrum for first period on a Tuesday. I backed up several feet, put my hands up in surrender and told her, "Well I apologize if I am invading your personal space here but I will not apologize for caring about my students." "I guess we're done with this conversation." Today I didn't make eye contact or even look in her direction. Maybe I'll surrepticiously check on her tomorrow. I know it's not proper monitoring of my kids but it's too late in this year of years to get chewed on again. Call me the dog toy of freshmen.