Friday. The first real week of school is over.
I can hardly begin to summarize the events of this week and last and how stressful, fun and awful it’s been. So far I only have 2 students that I want to kill and have only had one completely sleepless night. My grade 10 classes are wonderful and even though they’re a bit rowdy I have previous relationships with almost all of them which means we will never be short on participation.
Yesterday one of my students informed me that my name is written in graffiti on the wall of the boys bathroom under the phrase “#1 TILF”…I’m only mildly offended. And mildly flattered.
I’ve got one 9th grade boy who is just a complete jackass. I don’t even know where to begin but he refuses to listen to me and he refuses to do any of his work. Another boy is incredibly needy and is in my room every day after school and every lunch talking to me about his life and his feelings (so wonderful and helpful in understanding him, but not so conducive to getting planning and marking done) and yet another boy clearly has developmental needs and yet no one has tested him or written a plan for him. When I pulled his file I discovered that he failed both fifth and sixth grade AND failed EVERY CLASS in both seventh and eighth grade! And somehow here’s here in high school with no testing or question as to why he is incapable of succeeding in school. I’m shocked. He’s incredibly disruptive and frustrating to have in class. I started making a “Beer Tally” for myself this week, every time my patience was severely tried I added a tally to the list of beers I deserve for not blowing up.
I may become an alcoholic by the end of next week.
All in all though I find that teaching my own class is surprisingly fun. I love these students (even the difficult ones…though a bit less than the un-difficult ones) and I love the times when I get to teach something I really love. Social studies is my FAVORITE class, those kids are wonderful and I’m so happy to get to continue working with them after meeting them last year and I LOVE teaching history. It’s so fun to try to make these ancient stories relatable to them.
I keep repeating to myself the quote from The Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Whenever I’m frustrated with a student I just need to remember that I was put here for a reason – to serve these teenagers. And being servant hearted is not supposed to be comfortable.
