floodgate.blog

kind of a short post, more in the spirit of “crap is better than nothing”

1. My students are mostly clueless.  I don’t mean to say they aren’t capable, but they have no understanding of personal responsibility, and with the current quarter closing out this week, they will get a much needed wake-up call.  Very frustrating as a teacher, as I am stuck entertaining the “I need extra credit” bullshit from all angles.  My thoughts — do the work in the first place!
2. My truck has been on the fritz lately — weird stuff with the 4×4 and brakes — don’t worry, it’s still safe-ish..
3. STOP SNOWING… WTF?!?!?!  a snow day near the end of march?!?!  and it snowed again today!  I think that was the last of it — temps in the upper 50s tomorrow.
4. I have nothing to write here..
5. See #4

That’s all — have to write some “I didn’t bother to study for the test so my teacher is nice enough to give me a second chance… for the 4th time” bullshit…

I’ve found that friendly rivalry between classes that are taught in the same room are both entertaining and fuel some odd creativity. Through a rather shameful proofread on my part, my class ended up with Pedro The Mouse as their sultan of mathematics. He is the mascot and face of every word problem since the infamous typo. Other classes have put up illustrations of other “characters” that have come up for whatever reason in their classes (I do not teach every class that is in my room). My class absorbed another classes person and apparently started a feud. Here is an excerpt from the test my class will be taking on Tuesday. Sometimes I worry about what might come from this, but I know that something good HAS to happen… right?

I’m more looking forward to the pictures than I am the demographics

I think this past week and weekend have been eye-openers for me.  I have let countless people run all over me, and I feel like I waited on them hand-and-foot.  This happened at school last week where I helped students in every free moment I had (on Friday, I helped students for the entirety of both planning periods, as well as for an hour and a half after school… ON A FRIDAY).  This resulted in not having time to prepare as well as I would have liked for my classes.  Perhaps a blessing in disguise that I am at the end of a unit in all of my classes (one tested already, others early this week).

This weekend my son decided to show me what “being almost two” is all about, to the point that the first thing I thought about after he went to bed was to drink a beer and stare at the wall for an hour.  He has found that magical “you’re my dad, but I can still do whatever I want” gray area, which my wife and I did a pretty fantastic job of ending this evening.

So, as of this evening, I am reclaiming what was once mine — I’m taking control over my life.  I will now start saying things like “no, I can’t help you now”, or “you should have paid attention the first time” to my students.  I will not add fuel to the fires that my son starts (figuratively, although the year is still young!) and will not succumb to his every whim.

It started today with me ironing every shirt I own.  Many might call this impulsive/OCD, but to me it’s a fresh start.  I always feel better when I am dressed to impress, and to be honest, I’d rather wear a nice crispy-ironed shirt over one that just came out of the dryer… any day!  It will be continuing as the night goes on by me planning my entire week before I set foot in my classroom tomorrow.  I will make time for my personal projects (these will come at the expense of sleep, but it’ll be worth it for my sanity.  I will make time to write about my experiences (positive and negative) either in a personal/reflective manner or right here in my blog.  I will take pride in who I am.  I will take pride in how I am perceived, be it by the way I carry myself or by how I am dressed.

I’m done with being pissed and shit on (figuratively for most, literally in one case) by everyone, and it starts with me standing back up.  I’m tired of being tired of it.

I hope you enjoyed my positive rant for this evening.. I have a couple shirts left to go…

The school district I work in is rather.. odd. Two towns feed into the system: one is more affluent than the other, and all walks of life are represented (commuters to the city, blue collar, etc). I overheard a student today talking about going out to look at cows (yes, the ones that moo) as if it was a car. I asked if there were “cow dealers” like there are car dealers. Naturally this sparked a rather interesting conversation. It culminated with the following statement from this student:

“Our cow right now is mean. He bites things. I can’t wait to have a barbecue!” (referring to the cow as the entree)

Definitely one of the funnier things I’ve ever heard, and definitely the funniest of the week. A fantastic cap to an otherwise hellish week

I’ve hit what I can only call a critical point in my first year of teaching.  I feel as though I am comfortable while teaching and can handle the questions being thrown at me.  I’m starting to see an escalation in student misbehavior.  Perhaps misbehavior is the wrong word (although not for some, but I will elaborate later), but students have been much more disrespectful lately.  Disrespect directed at myself is often met with discipline.  My tolerance for students disrupting the learning opportunities of others is zero.

Something must have been in the water this week — whether it was a day without the seniors in the building, or the first days of spring (still snow on the ground, but highs up into the mid 40s), but the general vibe across the entire school was energetic, and perhaps the most skilled teacher could channel this high energy into productivity and learning — I could not.  The result was that in one of my classes, I had a near fist fight and two students sent out of the room as a result (one student I let stay in the room until he referred to the Special Education room as the “retard room” — this comment still bothers me).

This was yesterday — I’m not sure if things were better today.  I can’t tell if it’s all students who are going crazy, or just mine.  I’ll definitely be looking at what I’ve done recently in terms of teaching, and see what I can tweak.. gotta love a profession that really follows a “trial by fire” progression.

tired all the time, but can’t sleep.  i literally sit around staring off into space (or into a wall) and have no drive to do… well.. anything.  you’d think going to sleep might be motivating enough.. but it is not.  i’m hungry right now, but the thought of getting up to make food is not one i’m prepared to think about.

at least i stuck in some good movies before this lack of… whatever sank in (anchorman, dodgeball, and now galaxy quest — should i be awake for the next few hours, incredibles and spinal tap are next).

Report cards went home over the last week or so, and the stream of concerned/disgruntled e-mails from parents (and students) has been fairly constant.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that most parents viewed this as a problem with their son/daughter, and not with me.

The usual tone was present in each e-mail: What can we do to help insert-name-here?

Excuse me?  We?  I do plenty.  I make myself available after school every day, I sacrifice my planning periods for my students, and I should be doing more?  Do I only teach that one student?  What I want to say after a question like this is: “If you had taken an active interest in your son/daughters grades before report cards, we wouldn’t be having this discussion”.  But that’s alright, I can solve all problems — after all, I am an underpaid teacher

One e-mail in particular started out with a father being disappointed in his son.  He cited references to grades and attendance (if only all parents looked at attendance too!).  He then asked for what I saw of his son in my classroom — habits, tendancies, etc.  At no point did he point this at me, but at what his done was doing.  Seeing as how this was one of the more considerate e-mails I had received, I was very generous with “spilling the beans”.  This kid deserved a good kick in the ass, and I think that’s what it’ll come down to.

Sometimes I want to just scream “if your son/daughter didn’t make such dumbshit decisions, we wouldn’t have to have these chats”. But, I must he the adult.. that’s what I get paid for…

been a rather “downer” of a week for me — if you had the joy of reading the “post that is no more”, this will be a lighter, less depressing rendition of similar events…

this week is dragging more than most — the community approved our new teachers contracts (yay) but voted down our school budget.  I talked with those who are more in-the-know than I, and it sounds like we have a bunch of old people living in our district who fear the evils of technology (out budget increase was to improve the sad technological state of my school), and decided to screw everyone by putting us on a default budget.  I am not overly worried (I get my raise, so I’m OK) — I’ll just have to be more creative with less money for “whatever” (since I’ve essentially used $0 this year already.. I’d say I’m doing just fine!).

I’m really tired of the snow.  This is two days in a row that it’s snowed “just for kicks” (meaning, it wasn’t in the forecast).  It’s not much, it doesn’t stick, but i’m tired of it.  I’m tired of the monumental frost heaves on my commute — I alter my route now due to roads that are borderline impassable in anything lower to the ground than an SUV.  A couple co-workers follow the same route, and I’m amazed we haven’t bottomed out more.  My wife took that route recently and was convinced she left her entire exhaust behind.. pics to come (hopefully).

On a more positive note, I’ve decided to get back into the little things that make me happy.. taking pictures, creating things, etc.  I am still working on my online cartoon idea, and am actively thinking about what kind of end tables I want to build for our living room.  Hopefully this will null out the evils of too much snow, long drives, psychotic gas prices, and a town who cares about teachers paychecks, yet refuses to adequately fund their students.