Sunday, May 13, 2007

May- a teacher's tax season


The first year I was with Gabe he was utterly astounded by the phenomena of May in the life of a teacher. I remember coming home crying everyday that month. By the end of the month he had the routine down. Gin and tonic at the door, pillow and blanket on the couch, girl movie in the VCR.
I don't know why May is so hideous... but it is. I am going to blame this on the students (Sorry all students!) as their attitudes are horrendous. But in reality it is probably equally the teachers' fault because all sense of humor is GONE. This is dreadful combination. To give you a quick example, a student in my study hall asked for help understanding dominant and recessive genes. I asked him to go get a book from the closet so that we could look at it and he said, "Oh, I have to go get a book? You can't just tell me? Ok I don't really want to do that." And then he sat down. I briefly thought about either helping him or giving him a lecture on dedication to learning and then realized, "Gee if he doesn't want to care enough to walk five feet to pick up a book, why should I?"
Sometimes I think this process of slowly growing annoyed and upset at the students is just a way of letting go of them. This year I will say goodbye to 50 of the best kids in the world who have known me for two years. They were 7th graders when I got married. They lived through my pregnancy (One told me recently, Wow - I think you're so much calmer now that you're not pregnant!) and they welcomed Emory into the world. I get so many emails from them about this and that. But on June 1st that's it....they go on to other teachers who won't instantly recognize their genuisness and I get a whole new batch of immature little cretans who don't understand that throwing sulfur into a lab partners eyes is NOT proper lab etiquette!
This year has been also terrible because of having to move. Until last week they were still refusing to move us. We were actually going to have to ask our husbands to come down and move 50 boxes of textbooks to the new school. But reason (or our constant complaining) prevailed and now they are not only hiring professionals but they are paying us three days of extra pay.
In the picture above you can see that my classroom is in boxes. Moving day is June 6th and I am determined to be ready. I am not taking or teaching any classes this summer. I would say it is going to be a true summer off but of course that is ridiculous. The room needs to be painted, the boxes unpacked, all of my documents transferred, and new lessons prepared.

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