Wednesday, May 21, 2008

15 days (and counting)

A few weeks ago, I started getting brief flashes of why I thought I wanted to go into teaching in the first place. Not large interludes, mind you, but pleasant moments of student-teacher and overheard student-student interaction. I got to facilitate a little bit of learning, and started thinking that this job does have its moments.

I'm sure this sounds quite nice to all of you out there. "Aww, she finally reconciled herself with her calling." If you thought that, though, you would be wrong. I had come to terms with hating teaching, so the idea that it might, in time, become a bearable and even rewarding profession stirred up a good deal of conflict. What if I did belong in this horrible, stressful, time-consuming profession?

Luckily for me, the past week has totally killed all the warm fuzzy feelings I was having. There has been a school-wide plague of discipline problems, and my classes certainly haven't been excused from the madness. My 9th graders' hormones are apparently going crazy, leading to a good deal of lip, emotional drama, bullying (of my 6th grade students, no less), and drawing penises on chairs while being sent outside for inappropriate comments. The school was TPd again.

We've been trying to crack down a little bit on the discipline. Three of my students were out on suspension today; two for getting in a bloody fight with each other, the third for pot. One of my 7th graders will be out all week, due to a combination of truancy and theft during Saturday school. I'm running a one-woman campaign to see that detentions are enforced (follow up is rather lax). I'm just hoping we all make it to the end of the year. I think we're all counting the days at this point. 15...

3 comments:

Jon said...

I'm a 2nd year 7th Grade Reading teacher. The administration insists that we stand outside our doors between classes to provide the presence of authority in the hallway. However, this leaves our classrooms unsupervised. Thursday, upon entering my 3rd hour, there was a mound of poop on my desk. Yes, poop. I don't know if it was dog or people, but it was poop. 7 more days.

Geggie said...

Loving the new look, BTW.

Teaching is a terribly hard, and, most of the time unfillfilling job. Keep your chin up!

Teacher Anonymous said...

black hockey jesus - Wow. Some people are way to comfortable with their own feces. I imagine you're quite ready for summer and a fresh batch of children.

geggie - I'll make it. :) Aside from counting down the days, I'm taking consolation in cracking down on discipline.