The above is a quote from....me. It actually came out of my mouth without me having any intention of sounding completely ridiculous (an intention I do have quite often, especially while teaching, but this was a fluke). I was actually pretty upset, because I had put a lot of time and effort into making our reading lesson fun and exciting, but apparently some kid farting after lunch was way more interesting. This was one of those moments when I was sitting with my class, thinking back on all those long nights studying in college, thinking about the loans I am STILL paying off....and then this is what my career is. This is the life path I have chosen. Some people are finding the cure for cancer, I am discussing why we don't need to laugh at farts. Although some might argue that teaching is a noble profession, at times like these I wonder what I got myself into.Since I have just begun documenting these sorts of moments, lets look at some highlights for this week:
1. A kid asked the special ed teacher I work with if he could have a pass to go to the dentist, and then just looked extremely confused when she told him this was a school, and there was no dentist here.
2. Same kid ran out of my room in the middle of another lesson, to tell a teacher he saw in the hall, (whom he had never even spoken to) that we were playing "follow the leader". We were doing absolutely nothing like that. I think one time when walking the class to a playground on the other end of the building I might have used that term....like 2 months ago.
3. While discussing safety, one thing I reminded the children was to wear their seatbelts. While kids raised their hands and said things like "that's right, then you won't hit the window in an accident", one kid shared "if you speed, you might get pulled over, and if you have drugs, the cops will find them, because they use flashlights to search the car". Um....ok....guess we know what goes on in that family. Honestly, how am I supposed to respond to that? I just said "well speeding isn't safe, and drugs are bad, so if you don't do either of those things you won't have a problem". What the h???
And of course some of my fabulous colleagues that make my life so much easier....actually, in all seriousness, my school is filled with them. I love most people. However, I don't go home and rave about them to my husband, because, lets be serious, when you go home, you complain about your day, you don't talk about what went smoothly and as planned.
BUT then, as in any workplace, there are those few people. That you pretty much wonder how they even were able to dress themselves in the morning, much less get a job and arrive there every day (or for some of them, days they feel
like it). Let's meet some people:
1. Shelf Butt (nickname for obviously reasons) - She is supposed to pull students out of my room to service them for speech and language. Some kids have serious needs in this area. It is against federal law for her not to service these children. Last year, she was servicing about 1/8 of the hours she was supposed to. In December, she got mad at me, and my students didn't see her the rest of the year. Professionalism at it's best.
Last week, I had to sit in on a meeting because another stellar teacher. I call her "swine flu mask", because she wears (the same one) on a regular basis and looks ridiculous, I'm sorry. It's one thing if you have a real reason, another if you have paranoia, plus also want to set the stage for an extended absence, which was exactly what this lady was doing. Swine Flu Mask hadn't been to school in about 2 weeks, despite rumors that her doctor had long since cleared her to. I guess her usual schedule of checking her email with her back to her kids for 7 hours had become too demanding. So this was one of many tasks I had to take over for her. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss this child's progress in speech. I had never met this child. Swine Flu Mask was supposed to have turned in a report, but of course she hadn't had time while sitting around her house for two weeks. I went to get her grade book, which I miraculously found in the world's most cluttered, disorganized classroom (and I am NOT an organized person, so coming from me that's saying a lot). There was one grade. It was 3 weeks in to October. I went to the principal to see if she had handed in the required data, since we had no report from her (*** ya I ratted her lazy *** out!). Nope.
Well, that's ok, we are here to report on speech, after all. Let's just hear from Shelf Butt. Oh wait...she's not in the room. She hadn't bothered to show up. My assistant principal, we'll call her SweetiePie, since she is so sweet but needs to be a little more aggressive with people like Shelf Butt, sent me to get her. As soon as I got to her office, I saw, OF COURSE she couldn't have made the meeting! Silly me! She was in the middle of eating her lunch! Despite the fact that she does not have a class and makes her own schedule, and as I said before, rarely follows it, leaving one to wonder how she fills the hours of 8:45-3:45 each day, this was clearly the only time she could possibly fit in eating. Never mind us hardworking teachers who are lucky to get ten minutes to pee and gulp down a sandwich. Eating clearly took precedence over doing her job.
When I informed her that SweetiePie had sent me to get her since it was not 15 minutes past when the meeting was supposed to begin, she rudely yelled "I KNOW! I'M EATING LUNCH" and said she was on her way. Imagine saying that to your
bosses request, albeit through a third party (me).
The joke was on us though. When she arrived, it turned out she had never done her report! This was also a violation of federal law! So, the meeting was over, without really even having ever began. When I told my friend who is an SLP (speech language pathologist) in another state, she lamented not having come to work for my school, where she obviously could have just sat around each day and continued to get a paycheck, instead of working her a$$ off as she was doing. The worst part is, Shelf Butt makes way more money than I do as a teacher.
This first post was clearly a rant. Let me clarify, there are moments when I am with my class and I realize we are all having fun. There are times when I enjoy seeing them do something adorable. There are times when a colleague gives me a great idea, or does favors for me, or makes my life easier in some other way. I'll try to include some of those....but wasn't hearing about Shelf Butt funnier? I