I decided that I'm going to give notice at the school on Monday. I will still work as a substitute and I talked to one of the second grade teachers about volunteering in her class, so I can still see Sabrina and Reece and Austin. No Nevah in there or Logan, though. Nevah is in a different class and for some reason she was out of school almost all week. I spoke to her teacher about it today and she laughed it off. The attitude of the teachers is one of the reasons that I made this decision. I don't want to work with those people anymore. I like my team, but hearing the teachers call students "stupid" or hearing my principal's attitude about a male student's struggle to figure out his sexuality , well it's just not an environment I want to work in anymore. If I could do anything about it, I would, but instead I'm called one of the "Lunch Nazis."
If I'm not working at the school, it will give me two more hours a day to finish my other work and maybe I can start taking photos again. I got so excited by the prospect of taking on more and more writing jobs that I......well, I kind of over-extended myself. This adjustment and the fact that I will still be working at the school at least a few days a month make this a very good compromise.
I feel some guilt about leaving the school, especially after writing it out here. I know that the kids need adults that they can count on and talk to, but I have 4 kids of my own, on my own and the way things are now, I'm too tired too busy to give them the attention that they need.
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I took some photos of my family. Here are a couple that have Bay in them. Doesn't Greg look "pensive" sitting on the bench. Chance is the blur. I used a no-flash setting and I got a lot of blur photos, which I like for some reason. I'll show one with my brother-in-law, Matt soon. Robin is to the right, doing something with her camera.
They are showing me Chance on the camera. Isn't Robin's new house lovely? It has lots of big windows and a great front and back porch. We had such a good visit. I wish we were there right now.
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3 comments:
I'm sorry that you have had to make this difficult decision, but you need to do what is best for you and your family first. I understand your frustration as I have run into educators like that especially as I was the special ed teacher working with their mainstreamed students. I tried to be the best ambassador for those kids that I could be.
With all of the testing, there is so much pressure to achieve or be punished under the extreme stupidity of 'Leave No Child Behind'. Nothing counts except the test and any kid that may lower the scores is a problem. It is a terrible way to evaluate learning and to handicap an individual teacher's creativity or a student's particular learning style.
Volunteering is a good compromise..
--Michelle--
Thanks. I've been thinking about it so much. There's one student in particular that I hate leaving behind. He's a 4th grader and so many people have written him off. I'm going to worry about him, but I'd do that in a couple of years, when he moved on to Jr High anyway.
Today there was an incident with my principal and that's just the sort of thing that has burned me out on the job.
I think you chose to do the right one. You've had some major and minor issues there. With your current work I think you'll have quite a lot to do and you seem very happy with it all. I love the pics, especially that first one of B. Love her expression there. Greg looks kind of sad there. Not sure why I think that.
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