ahora vamos a contar

what a dumb day.

for the first time, i made my kids a stupid coloring packet so that i could get reading tests done. it was all about busy work today, save for the stupid lesson i had to teach on patriotism. i refuse to teach the anglo version of what went down at the alamo as well as the pledge of allegiance, so suffice it to say i'm not too keen on other "let's thump our chests and talk about the stars and stripes!" type exercises. mostly for personal reasons but also because most of my kids arrived from méxico or guatemala or cuba sometime in the last five years and, along with their families, still have allegiance with their native land. so whatever, i've tried to avoid it for as long as possible, but coloring the liberty bell and all that bullshit was the only quick thing i could come up with today. yes, i'm a hater. i'm surprised i still live here after the last election, but moving on...

don't blame me for not giving your child his homework when you walk into the classroom and it's sitting on his table, right where he left it at the end of the school day. and don't think your not-so-charming smile will make up for your bitchy accusation. they're seven years old, they can remember to put the notebook in their stupid backpack when it's been a daily routine for the last four months. and if they don't, too bad so sad, get out of my fucking face.

the next stupid thing: my favorite and smartest female student withdrew today. going back to mx with mom. gets my numbers down, which is great, but leaves me with a 3:1 ratio of boys to girls and gets rid of one of the few female students that i trust and enjoy. which leads me to:

MORE STOLEN SHIT. the same kid that i thought stole stuff in jan/feb has a stoneface, but i know it's her. another little girl brought a purse today and it was stolen at day's end. she's my official drama queen and was sobbing about it as we packed up and met on the carpet to say goodbye to our compañera, so i laid down the law and instructed the students to pick a partner and look in their backpack. apparently i personally cannot conduct a search on student property but other students can. laws are stupid. you should fix those in a few years, texican (ha, i used your blog handle, how dumb is that?). anyways, i told my most honest student to look in the shifty little girl's bag. she put up quite a fight, but of course it was because she had the fucking purse in her backpack. i talked to her for about 15 minutes but she kept swearing that she didn't put the purse in her bag and wouldn't cop to anything else. fucking stupid stealing children ruin my already stupid day. tomorrow she's the asst. principal's problem, i'm sick of this shit. i'd like to teach now, please.