The Hardest Parts...

Over the course of my few years establishing myself as a well-trained special education teacher, I've determined what has made my job the most difficult.  No, it's not the long hours or extensive paperwork, nor is it the low salary with continued budget freezes.  Through my short time here at the beginning of my career, I've narrowed it down to two things: two things that I was never prepared for during my undergraduate or graduate years; two things that are impossible to be prepared for unless you are entirely thrown into it and allowed to experience first hand.  But guess what, folks?  I'm going to give them to you now, free of charge and sans the actual heartbreak you feel having to experience them:

1.)  There are going to be some students who, no matter how much success you feel they have met within the confines of your little building, are going to become more influenced by the big, bad outside world of drug dealing, drug doing, and gang affiliating.

2.)  There are going to be some students who, no matter how much you have done and sacrificed for them (i.e. going to their sports games both in and out of school, buying them supplies that you know their parents can't provide, working one-on-one with them during your only planning time, giving them little trinkets just for showing up to school) will completely disrespect you and tell you straight to your face that they "don't give a sh*t what you've done for [them]."

These are the two things that I have found to be the most difficult to deal with.  Because it's a new year, I'm going to try to just let these things go and focus more on the positive aspects of what I do.  I can't dwell on the things that I cannot change.  And those are two things that, unfortunately, I will never be able to change.

I'll be back tomorrow with two new things: the two things that make my job the best.  That's what I need to focus on for 2012.


Happy New Year.

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY!

A former student of mine, who is now 16, came to show me her early Christmas present from her father: A nice big tattoo... on her neck.  Nothing says "Please hire me!" like a big ugly neck tattoo!  Oh wait...

Smoking Skunks Get Smacked. And I Just Feel Bad.

Today, a half hour after we had already begun first period, one of my students walked into the classroom backwards and stated aloud, "I woked-ed up late." Now this particular student is not one to draw attention to himself, so I knew something was up right away based on his entrance.  As he made his way over to his seat, I was suddenly taken aback by the disgusting odor that hit me.  Now when the odor first permeated my nasal passage, my mind immediately went to a mental image of this student being attacked by a raging pack of rabid skunks on his way in to school this morning.  But I knew better than that, and I knew that this kid, who we will now call Skunk, had just gotten to school after smoking some skunk weed.  (I'll give you one guess as to why it's called "skunk".)  Almost immediately, the entire room was filled with this stench and the other students began yelling, "I'm gonna be sick!", "Can we open a window?!", "What the f*ck Skunk, you stink!"  It was when another teacher popped his head into the room and stated, "Just a heads up, your room reeks of weed," that I knew it was time to bring Skunk down to his administrator.  So I pulled him out into the hallway and just told him to follow me.  As we were walking, Skunk says to me, "Miss, where are we going?"  I replied with, "Skunk... where do you think we're going?"  That's when he dropped to his knees, put his hands up to his face as if he were praying and began sobbing, "NO MISS PLEASE! PLEASE! I'LL DO ANYTHING! THIS IS ONLY MY SECOND TIME SMOKING! I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN MISS PLEASE! MY MOTHER WILL KILL ME! LITERALLY! SHE WILL KILL ME! PLEASE!  I'LL DO ANYTHING!"

I felt awful.  I really do like this student and I hated to see him get in trouble, but I really didn't have a choice.  I explained the whole "mandated reporter" thing that goes along with being a teacher and that my job was on the line if I didn't bring him to his administrator, but he just continued to cry and beg me on his knees not to.  He was a mess.  I was a mess.

Once we got down to the administrator's office, he admitted that he still had some weed on him and he took it out. The school resource officer collected the "evidence", but didn't arrest him once Skunk gave up who his "dealer" was.  And it was none other than my golden child from 2 years ago... Sonic.  That totally bummed me out.

The whole situation really just bummed me out.  I felt awful getting this kid in as much trouble as I did, but he really didn't leave me with any other option.  Apparently once his mother got to school, she smacked him really hard across the face... twice... before an administrator had to step in.  I don't even want to imagine what will happen to him tonight when he's home.

I know that what I did today, had to be done.  I just feel awful having done so.

New Teacher Tip Of The Day:  Our job is not easy.

The 2nd Lockdown Of My Career...

Well today marks the second lockdown of my teaching career.  Here's what happened:

A boy called a girl fat.

The girl flipped out.

The girl attempted to punch a teacher.

The girl successfully punched an administrator.

The girl then tried to throw herself out of the second story window.

The girl was then restrained by 5 very large security guards.

The girl then puked all over every single one of the security guards.

Just another day in the life of a high school special education teacher...

Special Ed. Sympathy Cards...

On Thanksgiving Day, the sister of the tutor that I work with passed away after a very long battle with cancer.  So today, during my resource period, I had my students create sympathy cards for her for when she returns to work.

One of my students with autism wrote: "If your sister ate more vegetables, she wouldn't have gotten cancer."

My other student with autism drew a huge picture of a tombstone with "RIP" on the front of the card and on the inside wrote, "Please pray to your sister and tell her I said hi."

Needless to say, I won't be giving all of the cards to her right away...  

Haven't updated in a week because we haven't had school in a week.  Mother Nature decided to rear her hideous head and gave us a snow storm... in October.  And, because all of the leaves were still on all of the trees, all of the branches snapped off of those trees and took down all of the power lines. Which in turn means (you guessed it!) no heat and no electricity for the week either.  It's been awful.  They (being the incompetent electrical company for the state) ended up restoring power to the high school I teach at and the town was able to make it into a shelter.  So yes, this happened, and yes, that is my desk and my stuff:

Now that's what I call... dedication.

Ratatouille...

Today in my social studies class, we were talking about laws.  At one point laws about food came up and then sanitation.  Then the kids began talking about how disgusting our school is because we have mice.  (Yes, every once in a while, one of those little critters will scurry across a classroom.)  At that point, Gamer (my student with autism and tourettes) raised his hand and exclaimed, "Say... if I had a restaurant and there was a mouse inside of it... I would hire him!  I hear they cook great meals!"  It was hilarious.  Happy Friday!