Some Pig

The Truth Will Out

Here are some piquant words from the classroom to end our week:

(Said in tones of complete surprise, as if it were a pleasant discovery:)

"The period goes by really fast if you actually work!"

This amused me:

"Mrs. S., you're not short!  You're fun-sized!" (said in consolatory tones)

When it gets to be this late in the year, my real feelings about kids start leaking out around the edges:

"Jerry, I love you like a very distant cousin.  VERY distant.  As in, I'll send you a Christmas card."

No, It's The BOOK That Sucks

After watching nearly every girl in my classes with her head buried in a book the size of a cinderblock since late August, I finally caved and started reading the Twilight series. I wanted to know what all the "Team Edward" paraphernalia meant, first off, and then when my neighbor's daughter (who has never read a book willingly in her life) became totally obsessed, I figured I needed to know just what the hell (ha! doomed soul pun!) was going on.  To give Stephenie Meyer her props, it's a page-turner.  I went to bed at 9 p.m. last night (why yes, I am that boring, thank you) thinking I would breeze through a chapter or two and I finally put it down at 10:40, having lost all track of time (and my shot at an early bedtime, dammit).  Meyers establishes a real sense of place and the action moves along briskly, but not with the head-turning disjointedness of a DaVinci Code.  However, as I've been reading it, I've been haunted (ha!  another doomed soul pun!) by a growing sense that there's something objectionable underlying the whole premise of the book.

Then I realized what had been nagging at my subconscious.  Under all the trendy modern-vampire-slash-teen-ennui facade, this is the oldest plot line in the male-female storyline:  Nice Girl Meets Jerk; Jerk Changes for Better.  When we meet Edward Cullen, he's hostile, withdrawn, arrogant, supercilious, condescending ... you get the point. But then Bella really gets to know him and sees how he's so terribly misunderstood, and once they get to know each other he's really very nice except for that bloodsucking habit and blah blah blah. Worse yet, the relationship between Bella and Edward Cullen falls into the classic, and let me emphasize CLASSIC, pattern of domestic abuse, and yet NO ONE seems to notice!  Let's take a closer look at this, shall we?  Let's see now, our heroine, Bella, refers to herself as "ordinary," "nothing special," "soft," (as in mushy-middled) "a loner," someone who doesn't have any connections to others and has no real friends.  She's bad at gym, hopelessly uncoordinated, accident-prone, the list goes on and on.  This makes her low-hanging fruit for Edward, who then engages in a textbook pattern of go-away-come-back.

He's prone to violent mood swings:
He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face - it was hostile, furious."
I could see his hand on his left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin.
Abruptly, his unpredictable mood shifted again; a mischievous, devastating smile rearranged his features.
"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella."  He was whispering, too, and as he stared out the window his eyes narrowed into slits.

He engages in risky, frightening behaviors, even when Bella is clearly upset:
"Holy crow!" I shouted. "Slow down! ... You're going a hundred miles an hour!" I was still shouting.
"Relax, Bella." He rolled his eyes, still not slowing. ... "I always drive like this."

He isolates her from her friends:
"Edward Cullen is staring at you again," Jessica said, ... "I wonder why he's sitting alone today." ... I followed her gaze to see Edward, smiling crookedly, staring at me from an empty table across the cafeteria ... he raised one hand and motioned with his index finger for me to join him. ... "Um, I'd better go see what he wants."
"The mention of Jessica brought a hint of his former irritation back to his features."

He monitors her activities:
"It's harder than it should be - keeping track of you.  Usually I can find someone very easily,..."
... outside the door to our Spanish class, leaning against the wall ... Edward was waiting for me. ...His voice was amused and irritated at the same time.  He had been listening, it was obvious.

He tells her repeatedly that she is responsible for his emotional well-being.
"When you walked past me, I could have ruined everything Carlisle has built for us, ... I wouldn't have been able to stop myself."
"You are the most important thing to me now.  The most important thing to me ever."

Put this all together and the picture becomes clear: Edward Cullen is an asshole. This guy is captain of the varsity jerk squad, and Bella's looking to help him earn yet another letter for his jacket.  Why?  Because he's dangerous, that's why!  But even though he tells her he's dangerous and she shouldn't be around him, what's her response?  She should be saying, "Thanks for the advice, Eddie, I think I'll go hang around with those nice boys Tyler and Mike who are always so pleasant to me," but no.  Her reaction?  She feels SAFE with him!  He's the only one who really UNDERSTANDS her!  She TRUSTS him not to make like a slim jim with her neck muscles til she's down for the long dirt nap!  Why???  Because she just KNOWS, that's why!

GAAAAAH!

As a former English teacher, I understand there's a huge difference between a book and real life.  I also know that nice, happy, well-adjusted people make for lousy characters.  Famous literature is crawling with cads and boiling over with bounders.  No one would give a damn about Heathcliff and Cathy if they had talked out their differences with the help of a really good therapist and settled down to raise Welsh corgis.  Romeo Montague was arguably immature and impulsive and had a bit of an anger management issue to boot.  Mr. Darcy was emotionally unavailable, Mr. Rochester wasn't the picture of mental health, Jude the Obscure had delusions of grandeur... I could go on, but the point is, I wish Meyer hadn't gone quite as far as she did to make Edward's negative tendencies look so appealing.  After seeing more iterations of the sweet girl/shithead guy pairing than I care to remember, I can tell you that teenage girls don't need more encouragement to see assholes as their own personal reclamation projects in the making.  That whole mad, bad, and dangerous to know routine looks exciting and romantic from the outside, until you talk to that wonderful senior girl you hadn't seen for most of her junior year because she was hiding from a stalker ex-boyfriend.  Or spend half an hour debriefing one of your sociology students after watching a documentary about teenage alienation because her former so-called "boyfriend" had raped her, given her herpes, and told everyone he knew about it.  Or witness the humiliation of the honors student whose asswipe deadbeat juvenile-delinquent-on-parole boyfriend talked her into doing something in public she didn't want to do, whereupon they were seen doing it by, well, everyone.  Why were these lovely, bright, interesting, attractive girls dating such a rogues' gallery of losers in the first place?  Because "he's the only one who wants me."  "I had nowhere else to go."  "I didn't know what else to do."

I spent my 20's and the early portion of my 30's longing for and/or dating the unattainable and unsuitable, so I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this.  It wasn't until I hit my mid-30's that the light finally dawned:  If you want to get married to a nice man, you have to date nice men.  And, shazam!  I met Warren! - who was straightforward, honest, nice, funny, eager to spend time with me, easy to get along with - in short, everything I had rejected in a dating partner for the first twenty years of my romantic life. Having been such a slow learner myself, I am acutely aware of how ubiquitous and pervasive the bad-boy stereotype is, and how many, many otherwise intelligent young ladies fall for it hook, line, and sinker. So far Twilight looks like just another lure on the line.

Another Post Explaining Why I Do What I Do (This One Sans Clever Title)

Those of you unfamiliar with the inner workings of education may wonder how we figure out what grade to teach.  It is not an exact science, and it varies greatly by individual.  Some of us enter a certain classroom and immediately the clouds part.  Celestial choirs sing a hallelujah and a shaft of light pierces the sky, while a voice from on high intones: "This... is the grade you should teach, now and forevermore, unto the end of days or whenever you become vested in your pension (whichever comes first)."  Such was my friend Tracy's experience (holla, Tracy!) when she walked into her 6th grade Language Arts classroom, and long may she wave.  Others of us are more the journeyman type.  The most extreme example of that is my former AP English teacher (I was her first student ever to earn a 5 on the AP exam, BTW, if you don't mind my bragging).  She taught everything - and I do mean everything - from kindergarten to middle school science to AP English and credit recovery for near-dropouts. I don't think she ever taught Arabic, but she probably could have if given the textbook and a couple of days' head start.

I am more on the journeyman end of the spectrum.  Give me a subject I like and/or an age group I enjoy and everything's aces.  I love 8th graders because they're grown-up enough to deal with themselves, but they're still young enough to be funny and open and eager to participate.  Then they disappear into a fug of hormones and attitude for two years, sucking their teeth and rolling their eyes at the thought of having to share the universe with people as stupid and ignorant and thickheaded as - well, as everyone who isn't them, after which they re-emerge as semi-reasonable juniors and seniors and then I like teaching them again. (P.S. Parents - this process of re-evolving into human beings happens at different times for different kids, but in general, freshman and sophomore year are the worst.  Get through that, and you're almost home free.) I love teaching history because I enjoy the challenge of making it an engaging subject in a culture that doesn't value remembering what happened last week, never mind five centuries ago.  I also like teaching geography, economics, sociology, and British literature (I couldn't go back to teaching English again unless I could teach British literature to upper-level juniors).  

Circumstances being what they are, I have found myself teaching at the middle school level after a decade of high school.  I was relieved to discover that my memories of enjoying 8th grade were accurate.  I have also been forcibly reminded, on a daily basis, that 8th grade is about as young as I can go.  My teaching certificate may read grades 7 to 12, but never will I grace the halls of anything below 8th grade.  My team shares classroom space with a 7th grade team, so I know whereof I speak.  Every time I go into my room during their teaching time, one little fellow or another is gracing the room with my favorite kind of youthful anecdote, the Pointless Personal Story.

What, you may ask, is a Pointless Personal Story?  Well (I reply), a Pointless Personal Story is a specialty of the under-13 set.  Imagine you're teaching geography, say, and are trying to impart an understanding of the Scandinavian countries to your young charges: "Norway is a Scandinavian country, and -" Now, it just so happens that the word "Norway" sets off a bizarre chain reaction of associations in some little guy's head, because one of the colors of the Norwegian flag is red, and his dad happens to have a red winter coat, and the next thing you know, his hand is up in the air. Before you can even acknowledge him, he's off and running:  "This one time?  My dad and I were driving to Manchester to pick up my aunt? (Ed.: you will have to supply the sing-song rise of the voice at the end of every sentence) And this guy was following us real close on our bumper?  And there was this other guy on the side of the road? (Oh yes, and don't expect anything as clarifying as an antecedent to those pronouns, either.  Everything happened to 'some guy' who had 'this thing'.) So we stopped to see what was going on? (winding up for the big delivery) And then we went to my friend Troy's house for pizza."

"Whu-?" I hear you saying on your side of the computer screen, blinking somewhat confusedly, "What was that about?" Which is precisely the point!  There IS no point!  Don't try to find one, either, because it will only make your brain hurt.  And don't try to stop a Pointless Personal Storyteller in mid-anecdote, either, because it doesn't work.  The Pointless Personal Story is as inevitable, and as inexorable, as death and taxes.  Efforts to stanch the flow in mid-telling are roughly as effective as Michael Brown in a national disaster.  I am willing to bet you cash moneys that, should my school happen to be the target of one of those so-called "smart bombs" capable of obliterating the building without disturbing its surroundings, somewhere under the rubble a little voice would be saying, "And then?... there was this guy? ... who had this thing? ... and my mom? ..."

So how, you may be wondering, does this affect SP's choice of teaching assignments?  Well (I reply again), here's the crux of the matter: I hate Pointless Personal Stories.  I HATE them.  Hate, hate, hate them.  When I walk into my classroom and realize one of the little guys is in mid-PPS, it takes every shred of self-control I can muster not to run shrieking from the room.  The endless pauses, the constant upward inflection at the end of every sentence, the story with neither rising action nor climax nor falling action nor resolution, the complete lack of connection to anything I'm trying to accomplish in the classroom, they are all completely painful to witness.  The closest analogy I can draw is to the time when I had a tooth drilled to fill a cavity.  The feel of the drill grinding my teeth and the whine of the motor in my ear made me nearly levitate out of my seat with heebie-jeebies.  So it is with Pointless Personal Stories.  I feel like I'm enduring seven cavities being filled at once.  I just want to kick myself in the head until I'm rendered unconscious, thereby preventing me from having to respond in an even vaguely professional way.  Meanwhile, even as I'm developing an involuntary tic in the corner of my eye, my coworker is taking it all in, totally unfazed.  "Mmm-hmm... mmm-hmm.  Oh, really?  Was your dad there?  I see.  All right, as I was saying about fjords..." God bless the man, but I couldn't do it.

There's some kind of developmental switch that gets flipped between 7th and 8th grade, and the kids generally tend to outgrow the need to share quite so, um, profusely. And this, folks, is the reason why I will never teach lower than 8th grade if I can help it.  I think it's my subconscious, refusing to give up the last vestiges of my high-school-teacher self.  I know my own internal smart-alecky adolescent would emerge and say snarky things like, "Thank you, Captain Random!  I'll take it from here," and, "Do you have a point, aside from the one on the top of your head?"  Eventually I'd say those things in my out-loud voice, and then there would be unpleasantness to follow between me and various parents and administrators.  Since I like my school, and like being employed, I'd prefer that didn't happen.  And so, to make a short story long, that is why I teach 8th grade.  The End.  If you ask really nicely, next time I'll tell you about the time I went to that place? with my sister? and there was this thing. Then we went home and had jello.

Testy

Holy cow, am I tired.

The finality of my move from high school to middle school is starting to sink in, and I am starting to wonder how we as a species ever managed to survive as long as we have.  It is totally surprising that anyone makes it to adulthood without a parent killing their offspring in an act of simple self-survival, because dealing with young adolescents will drive you to mayhem.  I love these kids and I look forward to going to work every day, but holy stackamoly, there are things about this job that drive me to DRINK.  Like answering the same question seventy-two thousand times, thinking you're finally done with that issue, and then being asked the exact same question for the seventy-two-thousand-and-first time.  Like handing a kid an assignment to complete, walking past the self-same kid in study hall, and noticing that the kid is just sitting there doing nothing.  Like pestering a kid over and over and over to turn in work, having that kid turn in one measly assignment of the ten owed, and as said kid is turning the paper in, s/he says, "Am I passing now?"  GAAAAAH!

Today was that day writ large. If I was asked a question once, I was asked ten thousand times.  No sooner would I give instructions than the kids would do the exact opposite. My requests for silence were only halfway out of my mouth when they were totally drowned out by kids chatting. I swear on a stack of whatever sacred text you prefer, I could have promised the kids that they would each get a million dollars, a trip to Florida and a new car if they could just listen to a simple set of instructions and follow them without having to ask me to repeat myself and some kid would have wandered up to me in mid-sentence and asked a question about what I had just finished saying.  GAAAAAAH!

So, to give myself a laugh and save my own sanity, I came up with the following On-Line Quiz!

Do You Work In a Middle School?  Find Out!!!

When I walk into a room full of people, their reaction is:
a) to say hello
b) to ignore me in favor of their iPods, phones, and laptops

c) to rush me, yelling questions the whole time:  "Did we have homework?"  "What's my grade?"  "Did you get my test?"

When I assign work to the people who report to me, they:
a) rush to complete it as rapidly as possible
b) rush to delegate it to an underling
c) roll their eyes, suck their teeth, and huff off

When I need to go to the bathroom, I:
a) just go to the bathroom, duh!  What kind of question is that??
b) ask someone to cover for me until I get back
c) have to wait, legs crossed, for lunch or the end of the day

When I ask someone a direct question, their response is to:
a) answer the question
b) deflect the question with another question
c) huh?  did you say something?

During my lunch hour, I:
a) do some errands, make some calls, grab a bite to eat
b) go out with friends to relax and have fun
c) HOUR?!?  Are you kidding?  Try 25 minutes!

My work day ends:
a) when the clock hits 5:00
b) when I finish my last tasks
c) when I'm dead

At the end of the day, my work space is:
a) neat and tidy
b) somewhat disorganized
c) disheveled and reeking of BO

The phrase I'd choose to describe the people I spend my time with is:
a) professional and ambitious
b) easygoing and friendly
c) hormonally challenged

Scoring:
If you can't figure it out, you are as oblivious as a typical middle school student.  I'll deal with you on Monday.

Damn, I'm Old

I am walking down the halls at the end of the day and I pass a fellow faculty member I've never seen before.  He's lean, dressed in typical teacher, sorta-preppy sorta-casual mufti.  His face is a little weathered, with smile lines and crinkles around the (sky-blue!) eyes.  He has a full head of short, salt-and-pepper hair, heavy on the salt.  The overall effect is a not-quite-so-old Clint Eastwood. 

In the split second it takes him to walk past me, I notice my head whipping around to watch him go by while my mind says things like, rrrrRRRROOOOWWRRrrrr... is it hot in here or is it just you?  A sandwich is a sandwich, but you, Mr. Manwich, are a meal ... and other similarly objectifying and terribly unreconstructed thoughts.  And then I realize, I find him so attractive not DESPITE the fact that he looks like he's got some years on him, but BECAUSE he looks like he's got some years on him.

It's official.  I'm middle-aged. Pretty soon I'm going to be a grandpa-grabber. 

If I'm going to be a letch, might as well give the people what they want!  I mean, damn, how does it figure that Clint's older than Keith Richards, and yet about a thousand times more attractive?

Hell, Johnny Dep's over forty!  Whoot whoot for the oldsters:
Thank you, People magazine, for that photo.  I hereby nominate you for a Pulitzer, a Nobel AND a Congressional Medal of Honor for your service to (wo)mankind.

Let's face it, this guy keeps getting better with age:

Oh, what the hell.  If you're going to be a grampy-grabber, why not go for the best?

Yeah, it might not be the most recent picture of him, but what's a decade give or take when you hit your eighties?  [NB:  Note that Mr. Newman's generational cohort, namely, Robert Redford, does NOT make the 'grabbable grandpa' list.  I have standards, you know.  Those pretty blonde boys, they often don't age so well.  Oh, sure, he's still got the facial structure, but ... meh.  Not feeling it.]

I was going to end this photo essay with a recent picture of Carrot Top to prove that not all men age gracefully, but I just can't sully my parade of male pulchritude with that travesty of nature.   It would be like following Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony with a rousing chorus of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Enjoy, ladies!  Some Pig out.

I'm With Stupid

Okay, I know I promised the last installment of my stupidity trilogy three or four seven or ten posts ago, but one nice thing about writing for myself is that if I get distracted by something else, my audience of multitudes dozens you and some pervert who Googled "marital relations with pigs" yesterday will just have to cool your jets 'til I get around to it.  I guess if that last sentence offended you, you're the one on Google, huh?  Get off my website, you livestock-violating asshat, you!

Ahem.

Okay, I was telling you about my low-level junior Economics class.  What does a low-level class look like?  I can't promise to be an impartial observer, but here are some of the general observations:  First of all, these kids aren't all dumb or learning disabled.  Some are, but some are just unmotivated, or permanently stoned, or they're juvenile delinquents who have to be in school by court decree, and it's far easier to stick them in a low-level class than it is to accommodate them in upper level classes. 

Also, these kids are quintessentially American in their habits. Their diet is horrendous.  They eat a lot of sweet or salty snacks and drink a lot of sugary, caffeinated drinks.  They leave many, many empty Dunkin' Donuts Coolatta cups and chip bags behind at the end of the day.  They chew a lot of gum, and from the smell of their clothing, they smoke a lot of cigarettes.  Also, their dress fits the norm, but is just different enough to be noticeable if you look. Sure, everyone between the ages of 11 and 25 wears jeans and sweats; what stands out is how these kids wear them.  The phrase that comes to mind is "too much".  The girls wear clothes that are way too tight or so loose as to be shapeless, excessive makeup or none at all. The boys tend to adopt some kind of informal uniform (such as NASCAR shirts, hip-hop clothing, or flannel shirts and work boots) that they wear every day or nearly every day.  Compared to my other classes, I don't see a lot of color when I walk into the room - it's a sea of dark and drab colors, blues and grays and browns.  And a lot of my low-level students of both genders wear the same piece of outerwear (a coat, a vest, a sweatshirt), every day, no matter how hot and stuffy the room gets. 

Overall, the word that comes to mind when I walk into my low-level class is "defensive".  Hunched over in their seats, hiding in their oversized sweatshirts and puffy jackets, these kids look like they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Some days - when they're not annoying the crap out of me by texting, copying each other's work, or talking when I'm talking - I find myself stopping in midsentence and wondering, "What the hell has the world done to you guys?"  They're defensive in their interactions with each other, too.  I hear a lot of cries of "shut up," "none of your business," and "I wasn't talking to you" throughout the class period.  Almost all low-level classes I've taught have included a pair or small group of students who get along like gasoline and the lighted match - they can't be near each other without exploding into a conflagration.  And, because there are usually only one or two sections of each low-level class in any given subject, these kids spend all ... day ... long ... with ... each ... other.  Because it makes sense, you know, to take the kids with the weakest social skills and have them travel around in a pack for six hours nonstop so they can get really, really irritated with each other by the end of the day (which is when I see them, of course). 

So here's the crux of the matter - how do you teach a class like that?  It's basically like running a three-ring circus with one hand tied behind your back.  Cajoling, threatening, bribing, outright begging - all options are on the table with a group like this.  I do a lot of bargaining ("do this now and you get five minutes' free time at the end of class") and a lot of immediate consequences ("if you don't shut up right now and get to work, I'm going to collect this and count it as a quiz grade").  I show any popular movie I can get my hands on that has some kind of tangential connection to the curriculum (with questions!  lots and lots of questions!) and I give a LOT of class participation grades, where all they have to do is shut up, pay attention, say something on-topic occasionally and they'll earn at least a C for the day.  I try to have at least three more activities planned than I know we have time to do, so if one idea tanks, I can roll with the next one.  And I put up with a lot of ruckus.  I know if I ask them to read anything longer than two pages, the room's going to be noisy and chaotic because they hate reading.  I know if I give them an assignment that takes longer than fifteen minutes to complete, they'll stick it in their bookbags and claim, "I'll do it later," a later that never seems to arrive on their personal agendas.  I know if I don't review all the material on the quiz immediately before giving the quiz, they're going to bomb it big-time.  I kick out the kid who makes all the 4-20 comments on any pretext I can.  I make his friend, who's really too bright for the class and just wants an easy ride, go sit in my colleague's classroom so he won't distract the 4-20 kid and set off half the rest of the class.  I ask them not to yell, not to get in each other's business, not to put their feet on the furniture about fifty gazillion times a day, and then I ask them again because they just don't stop.  I have generous make-up and absentee policies because in the end, most of them don't make up the work anyway and it covers my butt.  I make a lot of phone calls and send a lot of emails to the various special education specialists and guidance counselors around the building who are involved.  I drag unmotivated seniors through their third attempt to earn their credit and remind idiot freshmen that they don't want to be seniors retaking a freshman class for the third time.  Some days I feel like I'm making at least some headway and some days I count the milliseconds til June.

Oh, and last and certainly least, I try to sneak some content in there somewhere along the way.

To Whom It May Concern

To Whom It May Concern:

I'm writing to express my interest in teaching in your district

I'm writing to apply for any open positions you may have at the secondary level

I'm writing this letter with a vague sense of impending doom and incipient panic looming behind me, can you tell?  It's the end of March, and after spending the past year hanging around the fringes of this district, first as a long-term sub, and then as a part-timer, I'm starting to get a little worried about next year.  It's kinda the same feeling of desperation I had after being a bridesmaid any number of times, minus the peach taffeta dresses, thankfully, but still ... It's that sense you get that this is never going to work out for you, and no amount of wishful thinking to the contrary is going to get you the results you want.  Because as many kind words and well-wishes as I've gotten from folks around the halls ("Have you heard of anything for next year?  Oh well. It's early yet.  I'm sure something will turn up."), nothing has come up yet and I'm starting to get a little twitchy, ya know?  And then I found out last week that because I'm under a non-continuing contract, I have to apply for jobs as an outside applicant, which means my resume goes into the pool with all the others from the newly-minted, bright-n-shiny grads from the teaching programs who don't have twelve - no, make that coming on thirteen - years' experience AND a master's AND fifteen postgrad credits, and why on earth would any district hire me, who's old and married and has kids and doesn't want to coach/advise the newspaper/join the committee/run the bake sale anymore, and who's only going to get more expensive instead of less?  And isn't that ironic, that in this profession where - what? - fifty percent? - of all new teachers wash out in  their first three to five years, the deck is stacked against people like me who have a lot of training and a lot of experience? In any other field, I'd be more valuable now, not less.  Could you imagine if we used the same line of thinking in hiring brain surgeons?  "Naah, he's got too much experience and performed too many surgeries. Let's go with this neophyte we can pay half the salary and work twice as hard!"  So here I am, haunting the district web site and wondering just when the hell you're going to post some damn jobs other than the lunch lady/custodian and chemistry teacher postings that have been up since time immemorial and talking myself into and then out of multiple panic attacks as I imagine all the possible (and some impossible) scenarios in which there are no jobs in my field for next year, or there are jobs but someone else already has applied in-district for each and every single one of them, or there's a secret notation in my file at Central Office I don't know about that says "DO NOT HIRE".  And then I will cry, because honestly?  At this point in my career, I'm tired of making my bones and proving my worth.  As Jack Vestali, who supervised me during my student teaching days, once said: "You know what I like?  I like in the classroom, door shut, teaching."  Okay, he said that apropos of field trips, but the sentiment holds true.  I just want a job.  I want my own room, my own desks, my own bulletin boards, my own curriculum, all of which I can count on having for longer than a semester or according to which classes are oversubscribed.  I want a real, honest-to-God, not-going-away-next-year job.  With kids.  Teaching.  Here, where I live, and not three towns and forty-five minutes away, too, if that's not too much to ask.  So post some damn jobs, already, would you, because I keep refreshing my browser and not getting anything new (viz. lunch lady/custodian/chemistry jobs noted above) and the thought of having to iron my interview clothes, polish my resume and my interview schtick and go try to sell myself to some other school district makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and cry, 'kay?  You have my phone number, and my extension, and my home email and work email, so don't hesitate to call me.  Like, seriously, at midnight if you want.  I won't mind.  Please?
Abjectly snivelling into my coffee, I remain,

Sincerely,
Some Pig

Because Some of 'Em CHOOSE to Get Left Behind, That's Why

This is why teachers get hot around the collar when non-educators start talking about holding teachers "accountable":

Today my per 7 class (low-level juniors) had presentations due.  They did brief reports on a career field of their choice.  I won't bore you with the details, except to say that I gave the kids THREE class periods in the library to complete their work, which was more than ample time to get the whole shootin' match done if you actually gave a damn and applied yourself.  Even if you arsed around, nearly all these kids have study hall and/or computer access at home and could get it done then.

Out of my class of twenty students, eight - 40% - were absent (hmm, and on the day a major project is due, too - coincidence?!?!).  That includes the kid I saw walking through the cafeteria fifteen minutes before class began.

One student just flat-out hadn't done anything on his project and I sent him to the resource room to catch up on other work.

FOUR students came in with incomplete projects, three of whom were able to finish before the end of the period.

Let's see, that's THIRTEEN out of TWENTY kids who weren't ready for a project that counts for A THIRD OF THEIR GRADE.  One student had legitimate computer issues that I had witnessed, so I have to grade hers later.  Some of the kids who weren't ready at the beginning of class were able to pull it out by the end.  I ended up with EIGHT graded projects.  Eight out of TWENTY.  Come Monday, I'll give them the speech about how the people who weren't there on Friday have to make the effort to see me if they want their project graded, they need to take the initiative, it's not my job to chase them down, blah blah blah, and you know what will happen?  Probably THREE of those missing projects will find their way to me eventually.  The rest of them will give me the "Whu-? We had a project?" look, and proceed not to do it.  If these kids were employees, I'd fire most of 'em.  But you know what?  I can't.  All I can do is flunk them, which doesn't really affect them too much because they can take the class again in summer school, or next year, or on line, or whatever, y'know.  So the next time the state legislature, in all its infinite wisdom, or the feds in all theirs, start talking about how "all students should be college-ready by 2020" or not leaving any child behind, you'll excuse me if I snort audibly. 

Bah, humbug!

I'm Showing My Age

Here's one way you know you're no longer young, hip, and au courant:  You walk into class humming the theme song from Sanford and Son (you know:  Do doo DOO do.  Do doo DOO doo doo doo do, dah dah dah dah dah dah DAHH DAHHH dah!).  You look up and you realize not only are you the only person in the room who knows that song, the PARENTS of the other people in the room probably don't know that song. 

*sigh*

Did I Say Fire? I Meant, "Burning Conflagration".

Sooo, I was chatting with one of my new coworkers and she basically let the cat out of the bag.

Apparently my hiring has resulted in hard feelings all around the department for two reasons, one of which is that several people were in line to make some extra dosh by taking on additional sections, those sections being taken away to create my part-time job.  This, apparently, was done with little to no warning, or even so much as a by-your-leave.  Not that anyone actually says "by your leave" these days, but I like the way that sounds.

Perhaps this is why some of my fellow department members are treating me like I come with my very own case of leprosy.  And why, to paraphrase the Eagles song "Already Gone," I have to eat my lunch all by myself.

It could take a long, looong time for June to arrive.

*Sigh* [insert curse word here]