all the crazy for one day

I have not been a good blogger lately. Mostly because I was blogging myself (and teaching myself) into a serious crisis and it was time to take a few steps back and think (or sometimes just fucking stop thinking).

First: to quit or not to quit?

Well, circumstances what they are not quitting is looking like the most definite answer. In an ideal world I could take a year off, get my bearings, make daisy chains and skip dreamily around New Orleans considering all the pros and cons and options. But this is our crap, fucked-up, rush-around world and I've got a house to deal with and bills to pay and debts to suck up and in the end, I rather like the idea of teaching and hope that if I can just survive the certification process that one day down the road I will actually spend most of my time teaching and less of my time putting out fires and filling out paperwork.

I am coming to terms with the fact that my current situation is seriously craptastically disfunctional. I'm getting better at my job even as I stop sweating stuff so much. Just because, well, there isn't a sane human-being alive who could do everything that a New Orleans public school teacher is expected to do on a daily basis. This person, whoever they may be, is probably a sleeper agent android from Omicron Theta. I, however, am capable of multi-tasking and coping with so much so I'll stick with the shit I know I can handle and the rest of it will just have to fucking wait, thanks. I have to sleep sometime.

All that said, sometimes my kids are just too weird. I know I shouldn't be so horribly shocked that on the very last day of the 3rd quarter eight, count 'em EIGHT, of my students show up for "tutoring" as if that will magically fix their grade. Two of them are my regulars - they will stick around just to clean the classroom if there's nothing else to do and even when that's done I have to push them out the door to be out by 5:30 or 6. One started coming in a few days ago due to a failed test and has been working diligently to correct her errors. One boy is supposed to come in daily due to shitty grades and behavior contracts but only shows up when he feels like cramming for a test he ends up failing anyway because he's a punkass who can't get his act together. Another started showing up yesterday with the aforementioned boy just to be a tag-a-long. Yet a third boy is a good student but a procrastinator lately. Three other girls from my homeroom show up with no damn notice. One I have been begging to come to tutoring since the first quarter and just now starts showing now that is way too fucking late to save her grade (and she brought her little brother too, which was extra annoying). The last two girls just came in to fuck around because one is punished from speaking to the other so they hang out in my room after school to get away with it. What she doesn't know is that I'm going to call her mamma and let her know what a sneaky little monster she's being wrecking up my tutoring afternoon with her bully of a loser friend. Joke's on you, biz-nitches!

All this on the day that I am supposed to be number crunching their damn grades and putting everything in final and turning it in to my boss. I want to kick them all right now. My kids, my boss, everyone. Because there's just no way that I'm going to have all this straight and know that it's right and sign off on it being right and have it all ready today or even tomorrow. Talk to me Monday, stoopids, 'cause I know for a fact that you're not even going to print the damn grades for nearly two weeks so what's your fucking hurry?

Grr. Argh.

Again, all of THAT said, I'm in something of a groove even if that groove is a little precarious and uneven and windy. I'm coping better lately. I do enjoy the teaching part of the job when I have students who are into the learning part of their job. Oh, and I am totally the favorite teacher. It doesn't always make them behave any better but between the kids and the parents I am the fucking golden child and that's something at least. For example, the absolute nightmare of a behavior problem girl in my homeroom class apparently LOVES MY CLASS. She rolls her eyes, refuses to follow directions, never finishes her assignments, talks through lessons, tells me to get out of her face all the time, and is generally nothing but a bad attitude out to distract everybody in the room. But according to her mother, I can do no wrong and I am her favorite and she loves me. According to a lot of mothers this is the case. And I don't get it, but I'll take it.

Oh! And the best thing I've heard in forever: one of my kids wrote a poem about me! This is the same student who wrote me the sobber of a Christmas card. He's a major pain in my ass, but he is at heart a good kid and damn smart too. He told me this while I was waiting with him on bus duty this afternoon, that he'd written his english homework assignment about me. Fucking cool. I'm getting a copy for my wall and I hope it's really rhymy and ridiculously bad poetry too. That'll make my damn day.

me = masochist

Well, if my life wasn't surreal enough and stressful enough before, I decided to take on just one more thing. As of this next Monday I will be teaching a small group of about half a dozen 3rd graders in the mornings before school. For an hour a day I will be an elementary teacher and I'm really not sure how that will end up working out.

The good news: most of my materials are provided, we are working on pretty specific skills, the 'class' will be small, and I will get paid $25 an hour. That's $125 per week! That's my drinking money, baby. And boy, will I need me some drinking money...

The bad news: the mornings from 7-8 have traditionally been my prep time for the day ahead, so this means staying longer after school for the next day as well as coming early (I already pull 9 hours at school each day, nevermind time spent at home working). Also, I'm not trained to teach 3rd graders - what do I do with these strange creatures? Also, I have the dubious honor of teaching both math and reading (the other teachers are just teaching reading). Because I have never had to teach reading, I will happily point back to the good news, which is that most of my materials have been provided and are pretty straightforward.

This morning program is pretty much for the 'dumb' kids. I am a bad teacher in that I privately (and affectionately) refer to my students as 'my dumb ones.' They are putting the whole human race into perspective for me. Most of us are dumb, which is why education is such doomed but necessary enterprise. More accurately, parents signed their kids up for this extra time at school because they need the extra help, they are falling behind their peers, or possibly the parents just want them out of the house for an extra hour a day. I really am not sure. There are things that I like about having the 'dumb ones' but lately I've been fantasizing about a class of smart kids. I don't think I would love them or worry about them as much (my smartest kids right now are not particularly my favorites, though they are mostly good kids) but it would be a weight off my mind to have students who are less stressful. At least some of the time.

In other news, my students are cheating again. It makes me want break things, break kids even. There is one major peeve that I inherited from my father and that's a lack of integrity. It really bothers me when people lie to me like I'm stupid, like I won't know the difference, like it's no big deal. When it comes to my kids, it hurts the most even though I can't let them know that. I can't fucking stand cheaters.