General Whining

Please take the title of this blog post to be your warning that the contents of this particular post contain the general complaints of a woman who, truth be told, has very little to complain about and yet seems to still find SOMETHING that pisses her off.

And yes, I just ended a very long winded sentence with a preposition. Balls to that.

On the upside, Parker won his game tonight (2-3 is the standing record), Christopher's tooth no longer hurts, we have a three day weekend which delights me beyond comprehension, and Matthew qualified for the gifted program at school, which delights HIM beyond comprehension.

Yet, (You KNEW there was a YET, or a HOWEVER in it's way) I need more than the well-timed day off. I need a week. The honeymoon is over!! While the environment in which I 'teach' is better, the kids are the same. More or less, anyway.

We are nearly 8 weeks into the school year and all the good behavior stuff we saw at the start of school has pretty much been left at home and the true, inner beasts of my students are coming through.

I nearly strangled 3 of my students just today. (alright - no one alert the authorities, for I would not so much as even move toward a student in a menacing manner, however, the urge to kill that which bothers us {think.. mosquito} is embedded into our DNA. And, yes, I have evolved enough to resist such urges)

I get it that they are learning disabled, or otherwise impaired in some way. I get that - been teaching them for 7 years now, I get it! But there are differences even among my LD kids. I had 4 in with me taking a science test this week. Now, I will grant you that the test was 5 pages long and holycrapola it was hard, but I modified the test so that even Christopher could muddle through. Here's what I got at the end of 2 days...

1 student who finished the whole test
1 who went home sick after page #1
1 who finally realized I would not let him get away with just scribbling nonsense on the page and attempted 1/2 the questions, leaving the rest blank.
1 who completed 12 of 15 matching questions and left the rest of the test blank.

TWO DAYS, mind you.... I practically said "This answer goes HERE" and they still didn't even TRY. Ok... 1/4 of the group tried.

I've got other kids who I swear, if they are taking their meds, perhaps a trip to the doctor is in order to adjust the dose because they are climbing the walls. All I do is redirect and redirect and "Stop talking to her, sit down, you have a test in front of you, stop bothering him, pick that up, do not throw things in my classroom, get down off the desk, stop swiveling in that chair, get out of my chair, leave my computer alone, PICK THAT UP!!!" Please remember, my students are not 5. Well, at least not chronologically!

Then, to add insult to injury, I have had 2 different teachers email me and the whole phone book of the 85250 area, and tell me how to do my job. "Don't let this one use a calculator, we can't use that book on tape, there's no other option for him and why don't you just keep him in your room all day".

Oiy. Gimme a week. And maybe a gallon of wine.