sábado, febrero 12, 2005
how many days of school are left?
thursday, i wanted to quit.
i wanted to walk out of the assistant principal's office, throw my keys on the floor, and drive off into the dawn. i wanted to walk up to these parents that are making my life hell and tell them how dare you treat me so intensely disrespectfully, how dare you refuse to resolve anything with me first before running to the assistant principal and turning on the waterworks. i wanted to scream at the administration for fronting, for saying they will support and help me and not actually doing anything to alleviate a situation that they knew gets worse with each passing day. i wanted to shove the various letters i've sent home in the faces of these parents, and tell them that if they had actually read the damned things before signing them, they would realize that they have been given excessive opportunities to talk to me, which i spell out explicitly, but they are too damned impatient or lazy or stupid to take my words to heart and respect the fact that from the hours of 7:40-3:00 my obligation is to the 19 children in my room and NO ONE ELSE. you can't interrupt that and expect me to take you seriously if you're not taking the education of the other 18 children seriously. AND I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE.
sigh.
well, i guess i will, because i've been instructed to, but i'm not gonna do it in a timely manner and i'm not going to get too carried away with it.
friday was better. i trudged into school knowing i didn't want to be there and thanking god that it was friday. three of my kids came to the classroom early, and rather than sending them off to the area where they are supposed to wait in the morning, i let them follow me to the office so i could check my mailbox. they were being really cute. once we got back to the classroom, my favorite little girl gave me a big valentine's day gift. once school started, two more kids came with awesome drawings for me. it's like they sensed that i was having doubts about my job and wanted me to feel loved and appreciated. or maybe they just thought i'd really like a drawing of a shoe and a panda. whatever. my big bawling baby of a student actually had a terrific, work-filled day, and the parents that insisted on talking to me after school were pretty cool compared to the others that have become the bane of my existence. over dinner with la nuevita, i did a count: in the last six weeks, out of 19 students, i have spoken --either on the phone or in person-- with 15 of my students' parents. Four remain elusive, but i think that's pretty damned good. I speak to at least 5-6 parents on a daily basis about their child's performance and behavior. for those of you (esp. madhatter) who don't know what it's like to have so much constant parent contact, let me just tell you: it's not fun. although i gotta say, two of my daily moms are super nice, so they're not all horrid and annoying.
anyway, enough of this. it's the weekend, and i plan on enjoying every damned second of it!
(last night i went to a show and ran into the only two cool co-workers that i'm aware of... one of them frankly stated that one of my teammates is a rigid bitch and another said that my nightmare mom tried to get her son's pre-k teacher fired. geez.)
i wanted to walk out of the assistant principal's office, throw my keys on the floor, and drive off into the dawn. i wanted to walk up to these parents that are making my life hell and tell them how dare you treat me so intensely disrespectfully, how dare you refuse to resolve anything with me first before running to the assistant principal and turning on the waterworks. i wanted to scream at the administration for fronting, for saying they will support and help me and not actually doing anything to alleviate a situation that they knew gets worse with each passing day. i wanted to shove the various letters i've sent home in the faces of these parents, and tell them that if they had actually read the damned things before signing them, they would realize that they have been given excessive opportunities to talk to me, which i spell out explicitly, but they are too damned impatient or lazy or stupid to take my words to heart and respect the fact that from the hours of 7:40-3:00 my obligation is to the 19 children in my room and NO ONE ELSE. you can't interrupt that and expect me to take you seriously if you're not taking the education of the other 18 children seriously. AND I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE.
sigh.
well, i guess i will, because i've been instructed to, but i'm not gonna do it in a timely manner and i'm not going to get too carried away with it.
friday was better. i trudged into school knowing i didn't want to be there and thanking god that it was friday. three of my kids came to the classroom early, and rather than sending them off to the area where they are supposed to wait in the morning, i let them follow me to the office so i could check my mailbox. they were being really cute. once we got back to the classroom, my favorite little girl gave me a big valentine's day gift. once school started, two more kids came with awesome drawings for me. it's like they sensed that i was having doubts about my job and wanted me to feel loved and appreciated. or maybe they just thought i'd really like a drawing of a shoe and a panda. whatever. my big bawling baby of a student actually had a terrific, work-filled day, and the parents that insisted on talking to me after school were pretty cool compared to the others that have become the bane of my existence. over dinner with la nuevita, i did a count: in the last six weeks, out of 19 students, i have spoken --either on the phone or in person-- with 15 of my students' parents. Four remain elusive, but i think that's pretty damned good. I speak to at least 5-6 parents on a daily basis about their child's performance and behavior. for those of you (esp. madhatter) who don't know what it's like to have so much constant parent contact, let me just tell you: it's not fun. although i gotta say, two of my daily moms are super nice, so they're not all horrid and annoying.
anyway, enough of this. it's the weekend, and i plan on enjoying every damned second of it!
(last night i went to a show and ran into the only two cool co-workers that i'm aware of... one of them frankly stated that one of my teammates is a rigid bitch and another said that my nightmare mom tried to get her son's pre-k teacher fired. geez.)
