Stupid Tuesdays.

I hate lesson plans.
That is all.

Disconnected things

• The downside to a half-decent school administration is that they actually read the lesson plans I turn in, which means I actually have to write them. Sigh. They're due Wednesday by noon, so of course I'm about 1/4 done with them at 9pm on Tuesday night. bleah.
  
• The obnoxious child about whose leaving I gloated is finally ACTUALLY gone. I'm thinking of framing the drop slip. This is horrible and mean-spirited on my part, but OMG she was making me crazy.
  
  • unfortunately, the inflationary addition I mentioned previously does not seem to apply equally to subtraction. 26 is not that much less than 27. Alas.
  
  
• We finally have the social studies curriculum. Yes, this is 2/3 of the way through October. No, we do not yet have the science curriculum. Argh.
  
• Doing my photocopying ahead of time makes my life easier in myriad ways. Not least of which being that when one of the two copiers breaks down at 7:45am, I do not flip the fuck out, because my morning copying is already done. Muahaha.
  
• I have mentioned this before. But eating breakfast has more of an effect on my outlook on life than I'd like. Hooray for cream of wheat, and the extra 10 minutes in the morning in which to eat it.
  
• OK, literacy and math plans written. Time to go to bed before 11pm for the first time in weeks and weeks.

Perspective

Considering the stuff some other teachers complain about as "toxic" and "horrible" and that make them want to leave their schools, I really should be dead by now. Apparently I have a higher hassle-tolerance than I thought I had... the posts are starting to make me think "seriously? that's all you have to complain about?" And I'm still alive, relatively healthy, and less stressed than I was this time last year. I don't know whether to be proud of myself or amused at all of them.

(In other news, I've discovered the way to have a really good school day: five kids absent. Heh heh.)

On Quitting

(Necessarily vague, because this is an at-least-mostly-anonymous blog.)
Lots of discussion in various forums lately about new teachers quitting, mid- or beginning-of-year. I'm not going to say I never thought about it, because urban teaching is really hard, and sucks in a lot of ways. Yes, the kids can be tough. Yes, the support can be lacking. Yes, the funds are often not there, and the expectations can be unreasonable. Trust me, I know.

But what I always come back to is the message quitting sends to the kids, who are young and impressionable and in a lot of cases already deeply hurt by the world. How can you essentially say to children, "You are hopeless of improvement, so I am abandoning the cause"? They might not be able to articulate to you that this is what they hear, but how else could they interpret it? Especially when they are young, and already prone to the "magical thinking" that they are somehow the cause of everything that happens in their lives. They don't understand things like faculty politics and funding and mentor teachers, but they do understand that they don't always behave themselves, and now their teacher is gone.

Children need to know that they can grow and improve, and that adults believe in their abilities and potential. They learn this when the adults stay and teach them, even when they are challenging.

Not everyone can be happy at every school. But unless there's actual imminent danger, I can't really understand a decision to leave before the end of the school year. This isn't a job you take just for your own happiness.

mini curriculum rant (or, I thought the section heading "Naming Parts of Sentences" meant that we were going to learn to name the parts of sentences.)

OK, look. The words are subject, predicate, and punctuation. NOT naming part, telling part, and end marks. Stop dumbing down the fucking language.

Do you suppose I'll get in trouble if I use the correct words? X_X

excerpt from an IM with my mother

:i would REALLY like a standard 5 day week, please
:i understand that this is kind of a weird thing to want
:but OH MY GOD if we don't have a day with a standard routine in it soon my kids may actually kill each other.

That pretty much says it, really. There are only so many interruptions of routine 7- and 8-year-olds can handle before they just totally fucking lose it. If we haven't gotten there already, we will be there soon.

Busy busy busy.

Once again, haven't forgotten yall. But I'm either too busy writing lesson plans, or dealing with home stuff, or having my birthday a week and a half ago (hee) or I'm just too tired. Several times in the past couple days I've thought to myself "I should really update the teaching blog," and then I think "Bleah, don't want to. Much too tired to write."

Still the case at the moment, plus my classroom is a horrific mess (and the vice principal came in today and saw, argh), so you'll have to content yourself with a couple additions to the list of Posts I Will Write At Some Point.

Man, teaching is exhausting.

(PS. The most obnoxious child in my class just transferred to a different school. Off my roll sheet and everything. *does a dance*)