Frustration, Continued

Today I am grateful for a happy home life. I spent the better part of this morning completely annoyed and frustrated, but remembering that Mister and I are taking Beany out tonight for dinner and an extended visit to our favorite local bookstore made me feel better. I very much need to go out and relax.

I have a student this year who is the King of the Overreaction. He has been really challenging to deal with, and yesterday one of the girls accidentally banged into his desk when handing out papers. Because his hand was between his desk and another, one of his fingers was injured. When it happened, he yelled at his classmate that he would “fucking snuff” her and launched into a tirade about how she was lucky she was a girl because otherwise he’d hurt her. He also told me to get the fuck out of his face. I felt badly that he was hurt, but it was entirely an accident and a ridiculous overreaction. The girl was shaken, and I was angry.

Erroneously I assumed that the boy would be suspended, but he wasn’t. I asked Mr. Principal, who said that he was sending this child home every other day, and what else could be done?

I know what can be done. Let ALL the kids know that it’s ok to threaten classmates and curse out teachers, since there are clearly no repercussions. Then stand back and watch as this place falls apart again.

The next time I have this class I am going to send this kid to another room, and I am going to do this until his mother comes in.

My frustration with the lack of curriculum and other things I need to do my job well continues. After I wrote my last post, I aired my complaints about the curriculum materials issues at our grade conference, and I felt gratified that my principal listened and attempted to resolve some of my complaints. But as of today, there’s still no curriculum or even a unit for November (interestingly, “units of study” were on today’s grade conference agenda, but nothing was ever said about them, or the lack of them.) I found a great literature anthology that I think the kids will like, and Mr. Principal is willing to order it, but someone else involved is not in favor of anthologies and is thus slowing down the process.

A lot is being asked of us. And I have no problem with that. I love what I do and I want to do it well. But I’m not being provided with all of the things I need to do my job well. What’s the solution? Today, I think I made a decision to look for a position in another school for next September.

I have to believe that there is a school out there that will be a good fit for me.