out from under the rubble

there is so much going on at work. i haven't been in the classroom with my 7th graders for longer than 5 minutes this entire week. i've been out of town (1 day) and in transition IEP meetings the rest of the time. if state testing wasn't less than 2 weeks away it wouldn't be a huge deal. but it is so, it is. one good way to look at it is that i'm getting a picture of the kids i'll have coming in next year. but still it has been a hairpulling past couple of weeks.

and my 8th graders. they are killing me. how do i convince them, this late in the game especially, that junior high does matter. the choices and habits made now will follow you, at least to some degree, to high school and maybe even beyond. i'm afraid to use myself as an example because in their eyes i am a success. i have a job and offspring. they haven't seen what i had to do to get from there to here. they don't see what i still have to do outside of the walls of the school.

despite some indecisiveness on my part, i signed my renewal contract last week. i'll be a teacher again. at least one more year. i have convinced myself that it will be a million times easier. so many mistakes that i have learned from. lessons that were awesome and some that were horrible. i can time some lessons better as well. so i'm excited. it is notable that i have never been at a job for a second year. and this is one of those jobs i can't just wake up and quit. i'm under contract. freaky.

there has been a lot going on at my school over the past month or so. students with guns. teachers being fired. drugs. sex. attempted suicide. it's an intense job because you really never know what will happen when you get there. i broke up my first fight last week. it was one of those moments you don't really experience until it is over and you are looking back on it. in slow motion. you just have to move. get in there and stop it. it's harder in the aftermath when you know one of the students involved. when that student has been a dream until that point. a success story.

i'm having a really hard time with one student in particular. well, more than one, but one that i will write about now. a super athlete. one of those kids born athletic. and that is all that has really mattered to the student and the parents. reading classes are not taken if it means no athletics class. right around grade check for the "no pass no play" rule, student X's grades mysteriously rise to just barely passing. X is also a total hypochondriac and will maneuver out of class at any given time. today, when i read off (in no particular order) the class averages of my 8th graders, X wanted to go to the coach to get a copy of the progress report for my class to find out what needed to be made up. when i calmly explained that perhaps he could get that information in better detail from me, teacher of the class, he started immediately sulking. you see, there is a track meet on monday. he couldn't fathom why it could possibly be his fault that he is failing practically every class and teachers are unwilling to bend over backwards to raise his grade in one day. especially when satruday school was flat out turned down by mom and student.

sometimes you want to just give up on a student. people tell you that if you just change one student's life you've done your job. it is probably to my detriment that i can't accept that. because if that were the case, i would only be teaching one student at a time.