Long Week . . . . . already!

It's only Wednesday and it already feels sooooo long!

That first week back from a break is always a toughie - why? Because not only are you still in vacation mode but so is the student population that you work with is in that same mode.

Situations that have already "popped up" this week: (Negative stuff first)
*A student cuts my class after I had seen AND talked to him earlier in the day. I also want to point out that his girlfriend GUARANTEED that she would make sure "her boy" would show up for my class on that day.
*Two of my Honor students decided to cut my class. One of the students has a parent that works in my building. I spoke to her today about her son cutting my class and her response was, "How would you handle him?" The other student has a psychotic mother and I'm deathly afraid to call her to let her know that her daughter cut my class.
*Two parent meetings this week - first meeting was good. Second meeting, bad! Their child is failing all of his classes (including his electives) and the parents are blaming us (his Freshman team).
*My school has this tendency to start professional development workshops and then not finish them. First point - the infamous ELL training. The district pulls us out for four classes for this workshop and then decides to pull it and stops it. Reason given: scheduling conflict with the instructors. We are encouraged to meet for three hours once a month after school to finish the training until the end of the school year. Oh, I need to point out that I've already completed the hours for ELL and the district still made me take the workshop. Second point - I signed up for a Co-teaching Workshop back in October. We are supposed to meet every other month. The instructor has met with us once and has cancelled all the other meetings.
*I was chosen to participate in a seminar in Boston through the Bill of Rights Institute. It's free and they give us free curriculum. I emailed my Principal to get permission to attend and I have yet to hear back from him. Cost to him: the cost of a substitute teacher.

Positive Stuff:
*I have a student that has severe dyslexia. He really struggles and it's so upsetting to watch this kid. He NEVER reads aloud in class. It's a huge drama. One on one, he'll read with me. Why? He tells me that I don't make him feel like a dummy. Get this - we were doing popcorn reading (kids read a paragraph of a handout out loud and then they pick someone else in the class to read where they left off). Someone picks this student to read. He gets very upset and refuses. I say fine and let's move on. A few more kids read and this kid gets asked to read aloud again. This time, he READS! He struggled but HE DID IT!!!!!!!! I almost cried because I knew what a huge deal this was for him. He stayed after school with me and we had a nice chat about what happened and I told him how proud I was of him. We did discuss his reaction to the situation and how can he work on his feelings of anger too. He's the bravest 15 year old I know! :-)
*Chosen to participate in the seminar.
*Great colleagues on my freshman team that support me and the kids.

The moral of this post - take what you can get in the game of teaching! You will have good and bad days. Sometimes, it feels like I have more bad than good days. I give 110% of myself to my students and the profession. I need to stop taking it all so personally and seriously. However, I know that this is the way that I am and I won't change that. As much as it is a negative character trait, it's also a positive.

"Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is."
William Glasser