14 Fridays
Have I mentioned that I hate my job?
It takes so much from me emotionally. Like, all the new kids kicked to us from the comprehensive high schools - they're rough and ready to rumble. They're abrasive and assume the worst of everything and everybody.
It takes so much for me to make them realize I'm not the enemy. I'm an institutional agent, but I'm not the enemy. They've become their own worst enemies.
Or, like how little things set off even those who have bonded with me. This one kid I ate lunch with on Wednesday, he told the rest of the class and they are pissed off at me. "I thought you liked me!" The one who looks like an Aztec warrior - he won't even speak to me, choosing instead to use all the vocabulary against me: "Ms. B oppressed me." "Ms. B discriminates against me," etc. It's just stupid shit like that that adds up.
And just stupid shit like my evaluation. Flanders is just such an idiot. When I have to explain to him that kids are not all going to understand Shakespearean English, and when I'm forced to teach it in the first 10 minutes each day my goal instead is that they see big picture and can answer test questions about it - well, it shows he doesn't know shit about teaching any more than administrating.
I'm tired of being evaluated by people who can't teach. Even all the commendations ring flat. Yes, I multi-task well, but he has no concept of all the work it took to get to that point that the kids can do it with me.
Like today. I have to be so extremely charming to get the new kids to lower their defenses. Once they do, and they trust me, we can be on our way to a learning environment. But right now, it's just a bunch of strangers stuck together in an uncomfortable truce.
Lalo tells me he had 4 codes yesterday (he works at a juvenile detention facility) - usually he only has 1 per year! So, maybe juvenile hostility is in the air.
And I'm so tired of the bullshit of my university. I think I need to start being me a little more - which means taking no prisoners and not trying to suck up. Stop being polite. Flash a little of that juvenile hostility myself.
It takes so much from me emotionally. Like, all the new kids kicked to us from the comprehensive high schools - they're rough and ready to rumble. They're abrasive and assume the worst of everything and everybody.
It takes so much for me to make them realize I'm not the enemy. I'm an institutional agent, but I'm not the enemy. They've become their own worst enemies.
Or, like how little things set off even those who have bonded with me. This one kid I ate lunch with on Wednesday, he told the rest of the class and they are pissed off at me. "I thought you liked me!" The one who looks like an Aztec warrior - he won't even speak to me, choosing instead to use all the vocabulary against me: "Ms. B oppressed me." "Ms. B discriminates against me," etc. It's just stupid shit like that that adds up.
And just stupid shit like my evaluation. Flanders is just such an idiot. When I have to explain to him that kids are not all going to understand Shakespearean English, and when I'm forced to teach it in the first 10 minutes each day my goal instead is that they see big picture and can answer test questions about it - well, it shows he doesn't know shit about teaching any more than administrating.
I'm tired of being evaluated by people who can't teach. Even all the commendations ring flat. Yes, I multi-task well, but he has no concept of all the work it took to get to that point that the kids can do it with me.
Like today. I have to be so extremely charming to get the new kids to lower their defenses. Once they do, and they trust me, we can be on our way to a learning environment. But right now, it's just a bunch of strangers stuck together in an uncomfortable truce.
Lalo tells me he had 4 codes yesterday (he works at a juvenile detention facility) - usually he only has 1 per year! So, maybe juvenile hostility is in the air.
And I'm so tired of the bullshit of my university. I think I need to start being me a little more - which means taking no prisoners and not trying to suck up. Stop being polite. Flash a little of that juvenile hostility myself.
posted by NOLA at 6:39 AM
1 Comments:
Woo hoo! Whittling those Fridays away. I had a realization (perhaps a bit delayed, but then, that's me) that your Friday countdown is pretty much my Friday countdown as well. So I'm hopping into your rowboat, dear--together we're paddlin' to the sunny shores of June! Aloha!
Jen
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