Well I know I miss more than hit
With a face that was launched to sink
An' I seldom feel the bright relief
It's been the worst day since yesterday.
Well, I have finally cried at school. I was wondering how long it would take.
Two of my kids got suspended today. They were beating up another one of my girls (henceforth Victim Girl: she's got more baggage than is allowed on airplanes, and gets picked on ALL THE TIME) in the bathroom. One of the perpetrators doesn't surprise me, sad to say, but with regard to the other one I'm just floored. I'd sent Victim Girl to the bathroom with her (we will call her Apparently-not-so-good Girl) on the assumption -- heretofore well borne out -- that VG would be safe with her. The other one went with a partner later on, after I'd seen VG and ANSGG seemingly leaving the bathroom. I guess they went back in. (We will, of course, be completely overhauling the bathroom procedures. We will now be wasting 20 minutes of instructional time every afternoon while I stand out in the hallway and police their little butts.)
So the reading teacher/vice principal yelled at me -- out of frustration with them as much as anything, I think -- in the hall outside the nurse's office where they were keeping the involved kids, and I just lost it. The growth teacher got me to a classroom where I could sob in private for a few minutes, and a couple of teachers who saw me were very comforting (in intention if not necessarily in wording). We talked about a few strategies -- among other things, they said to take tomorrow off from teaching to do some community-building and atmosphere-resetting activities with the kids -- and they sent me home. I've been crying off and on ever since.
I'm losing my mind. I say it every day, with varying levels of playfulness in my voice, but it's never any less true. These kids are insane. I can't control them and it's making me feel like a failure. (What doesn't help is other teachers saying things like "I don't understand. These are normally such good kids." There are probably ways to understand that which are not "You are a failure as a teacher," but I'm having trouble finding them.)
And it would be one thing if I were going this crazy with 30 kids, or even 25. But I've got less than 20. LESS THAN 20 FUCK KIDS AND I CAN'T CONTROL THEM. Why did I think I could be a teacher again?
Mom (with whom I cried on the phone again for an hour once I got home) says to write down the good things and not just the bad ones. So I will note that journals in the morning are going well. I've taken to playing classical iTunes radio while they're writing, which calms me down even if it doesn't calm them down. (of course, occasionally it plays things like the William Tell Overture, which of course is less than helpful. I ought to bring in some of my own CDs...) This morning it was playing a Strauss waltz, so I started doing little waltz steps while they were journaling. They thought this was hilarious, even more so when I grabbed the girl who had come up behind me to ask me a question and waltzed her around for a minute before depositing her back in her chair.
Homework is also working, amazingly. They don't all do it all the time, but most of them do at least something every night.
And with that, it's bedtime. P has put on soothing music, so I shall attempt to sleep. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.
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1 comment:
You haven't had time to be a "failure as a teacher", and it doesn't seem particularly valuable to think in those terms. You've been at this less than 2 months, and as you describe them, some fair majority of your class has severe "baggage" or "issues". On top of that, the less-than-2-months you HAVE had were "coming in in the middle" rather than at the beginning of the school year. And it would be really instructive to know exactly how the kids were chosen for your class...not that you're in a position to ask that point blank, exactly.
It beggars the imagination that there wouldn't be some kind of resources to help a new teacher get a grip in a situation like this. Is ANY kind of mentoring available? I mean, beyond "yelling" by the Vice Principal? Oh, and where is the Principal?
It would seem that if these have always been "such good kids" before, then SOMEONE must have some techniques that one doesn't get from grad school. Who has them? And how do they get imparted, or at least made available for absorption?
I repeat and insist: it takes a LOT longer than 5-6 weeks into one's first job to qualify as a "failure as a teacher", so I'd suggest writing that off out of hand. If these really are "normally such good kids", then there must be techniques, and techniques by definition can be acquired and/or learned. If arranging that is not part of a principal's job description, one could reasonably wonder what a principal is for.
Time for the wheel to squeak?
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