doubt

Not much has changed from yesterday's blog.  My current state of mind is plagued with unrest, doubt, anger, and with me trying to figure out how I can use my sick days to save my sanity.  The almost constant attacks that I've been inflicted on by students, and misguided and misinformed parents has crippled me. I thought I was just bruised and battered, but here I am awaken from nightmares of incidents that has happened this week, and previous weeks at school.  

I feel like a witch during the Salem Witch Hunts.  I'm on trial for bringing the old school back to education (no late work, no talking if you haven't read the text, I'm your teacher not your peer, and so forth).  My accusers are not the Puritans of education but the liberal-experimentalists in education who let the kids run the school.  I shouldn't have to apologize or feel bad when I take kids cell phones or iPods (and I don't).

It's 3:20 AM and I can't sleep and instead programed in my Blackberry for Nov. 1 2009 at 1 in the afternoon to start the application process for a new teaching position or a new position in a different field.  I'm not above believing that maybe teaching isn't for me.  I'm embracing the growing pains that I'm going through in order to find who I truly am.  I get a kick out of the idea that I'm to be in corporate America working in an office, organizing meetings, creating powerpoints, and going to mid-week happy hours with my colleagues.

Teaching is hard and anyone who says it isn't and that they don't doubt entering this profession are liars.  I'm not Ms. Frizzel, I'm not Michelle Phifer from Dangerous Minds, and I'm not teaching a bunch of Freedom Writers.  I'm just a first year New York City high school teacher looking to make sense of her situation and herself.

ms. p

war

I treated myself today to a cab ride home, to dinner at the cute cafe a block and a half from my house (and didn't order off the discount menu), and drew myself a warm permanganate-scented bubble bath once finally arriving home.  Why? Because I wanted to cry all day.  Is it really only Tuesday? I don't wake up unhappy, on the verge of tears, hating teenagers, questioning my profession, or wanting to drown myself in gallons of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream.  

So what is it that has made me peter out so close to the end of the school year?  I'm not sure if it's exactly one thing that has made me so fragile, but perhaps an accumulation of little digs at my soul that has left me feeling less than whole and like a stack of Jenga sticks one move away from crumbling.

I caught myself at the end of the day staring out my classroom window wondering what it must be like if I was somewhere else;  Anywhere else.   Where did today (and so many other days) go wrong?  

8 AM- Introduced the AP vocabulary and English terminology commonly found on the AP exam; had one-on-one meetings with students of concern; had a verbal altercation with a student because he doesn't believe in taking class notes: "it's not the way I learn."

My blood began to boil as the student's stupid remark had me flashback to very similar comments made by equally know-it-all students.  How does a 16 year old know what works best for him?  Why am I wasting my time and breath going over AP review on students like this?

Lunch/Newspaper Mtg- Meeting with student of concern.  Finally made a connection through the girls hard demeanour and large door knocker ear rings.  Newspaper had only 5 in attendance.  I feel like I'm the one that has to perform for the principal and her desire to have a newspaper.  The "editors" have in many ways quit.  I'm pissed off.

This unseen pressure to prove myself the first year is crushing.  I hate it.

After school- had a mtg with a student and his mom who I in many ways detest because of his lack of respect and rudeness towards me.  Again, I'm subjected to so much shit from my students.

The principal explained to me that I'm an easy target because I'm new.  I want to interject that I've worked at schools before and have never been made to feel so dumb and so incapable.  I've never met such entitled and spoiled children before.  How do I build that thick skin?  I know, I know, I can't take this all to heart, but I do and I'm near my breaking point.  I can't and won't quit now, but what's a girl to do?

Teaching is unlike any profession in that it takes over your heart, mind, and soul.  It's as equally rewarding as it is frustrating and difficult.  I often question my decision to stay in the city where the people and the culture are so foreign to me.  I don't know what I'll do next year.  I'll probably stay.  I'm a glutton for punishment.  But all of this has got me asking,  "is there more to me than this?"

ms. p