Changes

One can be bitter for only so long and so the point of the blog.  Fun.  I had to get into the moment.  I had to let go of my anger and all the so-called injustices of life and get on with it.  I hate my job but it's my job so I might as well deal with it.  I take charge of my classes.  I focus on what I want them to learn.  I respond to their stupidities.  I laugh at their lame jokes.  In short, I get myself out of my funk.  The teacher next door comes into my room.  Starts yelling at some kids in their desks at the back.  Now, these aren't young kids.  They're 17 and 18 years of age.  I'd been out checking on some students in the computer lab and, when I'd returned dealt with some characters horsing around at the back.  I told them to move forward and this was just before Mr. Fraser came marching through the door.  Now, I'm angry.   Young upstart.

It's a lot of work

      I am teaching three blocks out of four four this semester.  For all the other teachers in my school, this would be an easy semester, the semester when they have a spare.  For me, it's exactly the opposite.  I'm the guidance counsellor and so I've spent the majority of my career not teaching, sitting in my office talking to students and parents as individuals or in small groups.  To be on stage for 250 minutes a day is too much stress.  I always feel on the edge of control and I can't stand the disrespect.   It doesn't help to only teach non-academic students.  It's because you're good at it, I'm told.  Sure, they can be good but they can also be very, very bad.  And yet, I know I can't hate them.  As soon as they feel hated, they get worse.  In point of fact, you've lost them.  So, I have to suck in their disrespect and their contempt for learning and all that I believe is important in the world.
     Today, I let  Grade 12 students  leave at the end of the day if they'd completed all the work I'd assigned since the beginning of the year.  I needed to give the slower students a chance to catch up without assigning more work to keep everyone else busy.  Naturally, they all wanted to leave and whined incessantly if they couldn't.  Unfortunately, they were not at a level of maturity to realize that school is meant as a place for learning, not prison.  It doesn't help that they are not academic students so learning does not come easy for them so they're not going to want to do it.  Still, there's no reason they couldn't see the logic of my actions.  They should be able to realize that I'm trying to help them, not punish.  Eventually, practically every student that I've taught has come to realize the sincerity of my actions.  It's the beginning of the school year that I always find so stressful when they're testing, testing, testing.  And now, I have to teach more than ever.  It makes me dread going to work in the morning.

Cassandra's Dream

            In “Cassandra’s Dream,” written and directed by Woody Allan, two brothers become equally desperate for money.  One has gambled himself into thousands of pounds of debt to the mob.  The other yearns for the life of a big time hotel magnate, the owner of luxury vehicles and palatial home with a beautiful woman on his arm.  He finds the girl, an actress performing at a small dinner theatre and investors in hotel properties who have offered him a partnership.  Now, all he needs is the cash. 
            The boys find a source in their wealthy uncle, plastic surgeon living in Los Angeles who will gladly give the boys their much needed cash if they will eliminate a problem whose testimony about some charitable accounts will land him in jail.  The boys reluctantly agree.   Of course, it all turns out badly.  No one kills in fiction without consequences.  However, it got me thinking.  What would I do if given the opportunity to have all my financial worries ended with the murder of a complete stranger.  How bad would it have to be?   

Rational thinking 101

Memo from my assistant principal:
"Teachers who permit this behaviour usually argue that gum chewing is a minor issue and there are more important things worthy of concern.  In fact, gum chewing isn't the issue at all.  The issue is whether or not teachers understand how to work as members of a professional collegial team.  The difference becomes clear upon closer examination of the issue.  When gum chewing is disallowed across a school environment, it's because the staff made a decision to eliminate this nuisance behavour by consistently enforcing a ban.  This decision was approved by the principal and written into the school rules.  Then, one or two teachers arbitrarily decide to do their own thing and allow their students to chew gum.  By doing so, they ensure that a behaviour which was supposed to be a non-issue throughout the school is now going to be an issue in everyone's classroom but theirs, thereby deliberately sabotaging the efforts of their colleagues.  In addition, the model for the students in their classes deliberate defiance of school rules and over disrespect for authority.  This isn't called gum chewing; it's called UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT."


Real Discipline by Ron Morrish

School Rules

No hats

No cell phones

No ipods

No visible "B's," boobs, bra straps, or butts

No harry armpits and so no muscle shirts for guys

No inappropriate word or graphics on clothing

No pop

No food

No coffee

No loitering in the halls

No use of the washrooms during class time.

No going to the lockers during class time.

No early dismissals from classrooms

No change of classes after the first week

No facebooking

All visitors report to the office and wear ID tags while in the school. Parents and alumni included

No gum.