[Miscellany]

*child screaming somewhere in the background*
bro - ...I hate those fucking whiny kids. That is one annoying sound.
me - you think THAT'S annoying? Multiply the sound by about a zillion times and keep it going for 45 minutes straight and you have that tantrum boy I had to deal with today.
bro - God.
me - yeah, tell me about it.
bro - what you should do is hire an inside man to pretend to be a prep.
me - WTF? Like a 25 year old Billy Maddison guy?
bro - no, no hear me out this is a good plan. You get this midget to pretend to be one of them and he can influence them. He'd be in your pocket the whole time and every time you want the kids to do something you tell midget guy and he'll set it up for you from the inside. He can be their little ring leader but really he's working for you.
me - .....that is not a bad idea. Where do I get a midget from?

The situation with the grades next year has gotten very bad. My grade is loaded with tough cases to the point where I'm about to just walk and not look back. I truly wish I could, but in the end I'm a dreamer with my feet planted firmly in the practical. I can't afford to just quit my job. What is upsetting me about the situation is not so much the "hard grade" itself it's the fact that things could be swapped around so that everyone has even grades but it's not being done, it's that I've had two changes to my grade which have both brought in even more tough kids and seen leave nicer ones and my grade was ALREADY loaded beforehand, it's the fact that I'm not being listened to and supported now which means I will be left to fend for myself next year also.

I know what it looks like when you have an unruly grade and I'm already battling with the stigma of being the art teacher going in to teach a grade. This is a huge stigma to deal with despite the fact that I've been a prep teacher before and I pretty much specialise in the early years of schooling. It's where my expertise are. People have short memories though and I know this more than anyone. The last thing I want as a professional is for my grade to be loaded to the point where people will look at them and judge everything I do MORE harshly than usual. It will have impact on my future teaching career because parents are notorious and terrible gossips out in the yard. Of course we will judge their parenting skills too, so I understand this is not a one way street - it's just that they can keep on having kids even if they are shit parents (see Britney Spears) whereas if the parents complain too loudly about us we get a bad name and parents start protesting about being in our grade. It can have devastating consequences as the teaching industry is actually a small one in terms of gossip, things tend to stick. You can go to a whole new school and everyone will know about your past - good or bad - within a month. Having a grade loaded with "issues" is like someone giving you a portfolio to work on that has little chance of succeeding. I mean sure, you deal with the situation and maybe inspiration will strike and you can beat things down but at the same time, if your end of year bonus depends on making it work and you can't because well, it was always set up to fail then you're certainly not going to be given MORE of a chance the next year are you...you'll probably get dumped with the crappy cases again.

Anyway the whole thing has really just depressed me. I'll just add it to the list of shitty things that have been going on lately.. I can't think of anything genuinely nice that has happened to me in ...well a very long time. God knows I've tried to rectify my myriad of dicey situations but to no avail.. I need a stiff drink.

Labels: bro, conversations, school, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, teaching, wonderings

posted by M at 9:24 pm 22 comments