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