I thank It was Grate But I ditining like It u dute now hiw to ? It bite on my nove – thay that no I shuying Bade can you hape me!!!
The above excerpt is character-for-character the response I received from a ninth grade student this morning. The assignment was a short post-project self evaluation. The students were asked to explain each of the group members’ contributions to the project and to give a fair grade to each member of the group.
I didn’t understand most of the response, but I understood the last four words.
A week ago one of my students confessed to murdering a woman in the French Quarter. A woman is dead, her family is devastated, and this child’s life is over.
At least 25 girls in my school are pregnant and many others are already parents. There have been at least ten fires in the school since the school year started, and many of the students are in school because they’re wearing ankle bracelets and have to report their activities to their parole ~or is it probation? not up on the criminal justice lingo yet~ officers.
And the special ed student who wrote the above sits in my classroom every day, unable to keep up. I spend the majority of my time on discipline issues. If I don’t get more support from the school district, I seriously doubt that I can help her. Every student can learn, but students cannot learn in just any environment under any conditions.
With these things in mind, consider the district’s recent decision to cut a teacher from our faculty last week. It’s also unclear whether more cuts are coming. This means that one of the Climate Control Specialists ~quasi administrative types who help with discipline in the halls~ had to go back to the classroom.
So the RSD figured what was needed at this school was fewer adults in the building.
I'm Taylor. This is my classroom. There used to be a "real" teacher behind this blog, but she nagged me all the time about not saying this and not saying that. ~all she ever did was type anyway, since my fingers are stuck together~ So I've taken over.
Yes, I'm an imitation Barbie knock-off doll. What of it? Barbie's got nothing on me! Let me take you to school.
Oh, dear God. You need combat pay, larger numbers of experienced teachers to bolster your position, and all sorts of other things designed to help things, not hurt things.
This is just asinine.
Funny you should mention combat pay because I was looking up the symptoms of PTSD today!
I am glad that I stumbled across your blog from Liprap’s site. I am starting school next semester as an Education major or English major – with the intention to teach here. It is interesting to get an inside perspective.
Thank you for what you do. I know it cannot be easy. I volunteer in my daughter’s classroom and those are 8 an d9 year olds, I cannot imagine when it hits the older ages and they feel that there is something to prove.
Amy’s last blog post..New Orleans: With Hope
Taylor, from the conditions you describe, yeah, you have PTSD. The worst kind is the witness/survivor kind–what eats at you is not just what you witness and what you feel for and of other folks’ struggle but also, and worse, the indifference and/or malice and being abandoned by those who claim, or at least are supposed to claim, to be there to help.
I was thinking about that today–we live in a punishment culture. Students scores slipping? Take away recess, a language arts teacher, music class, the civics teacher, the new classrooms, the Internet access. Teen broke curfew? Punish the parents and the household and, ideally, the whole block and neighborhood. I know your school needed that teacher because every school, regardless of status or “scores,” can use another teacher or 6.
Didn’t know you were here. Will be watching from now on.
Sounds like a school that…well…..is some large shack that has no money or anyone who really wants to be there. Oh and is 82 degree’s in every of the classroom’s. For the love of Allah, Thor, Jesus, God, Buddah and every other god out there. Please shine your holy lights on the pathetic school that this poor teacher is going to. =P Good luck in there Teach.
Taylor, Can’t believe I haven’t been keeping up with you for the past few months.
Now I’ve gotta call some BS on you (with love, of course).
YOU have PTSD?!? Are you kidding me? How long have you been in this situation? Now think how long your students have been in the situation. There’s where I’d be looking up help for PTSD.
And then sending it on to the media. National media. Oh, wait. You are. You’re blogging.
Thanks everyone for the support…..
and yes, Ginger you’re right.
I still feel like I’m losing it, though!
Taylor’s last blog post..And, Oh Yeah
*yawns* Boy, am I tired i’ll just fall asleep in this here classroom during class…….Heh yes I am in school right now teach, sorry if I shouldn’t be doing this during class but hey I got bored and I already finished okay?
Two words: Social promotion.
One of the worst policies in education. And, unfortunately, there are are many bad educational policies.
Marcy Webb’s last blog post..New Grooves
The school conditions that you are in sound pretty rough, but no matter where we go, we will see the effects of our messed up world. The problems that our students face don’t disappear when they walk into the classroom, and that makes their learning experience extremely difficult.