It's a rainy day here in MA today. Dreary. Sorta fit my mood all day long. Had some drama at school today. It wouldn't be a productive day without the drama.
I had arranged for a Freshman House assembly today during Homeroom to go over details regarding the Freshman Fling, MCAS Schedule, the new bell schedule next week (that's a separate story), and class dues. It's a huge production to process the paperwork and get permission to have an assembly. I have 392 freshman in the class. As Freshman Class Adviser, I played the game and fulfilled all the requirements. These kids had assemblies throughout the school year so an assembly is NOT something new to them and we've spent a lot of time going over proper behavior during an assembly.
We (the Freshman House teachers) brought the kids down to the auditorium. It took them over 20 minutes to just sit in their seats. I kid you not! We finally had them seated and they wouldn't stop talking and screwing around. Two boys start to fight in their chairs. Another kid was talking on his cell phone. The ridiculousness of the situation continued to get worse throughout the assembly. The Housemaster spoke for a few minutes to the kids and then introduced me to talk (he left the auditorium to go to another meeting). I get up to speak and some of the kids start to boo me! What the %@^@?????
I try and talk about the Fling and every time I would talk, they would be disrespectful to me - yelling, hollering, etc. I finally asked my class officers to speak because I was getting very frustrated with the situation. The class did the same thing to the officers - totally disrespected the officers too. Finally, one of the Science teachers tried to calm the kids down and one of the kids started yelling at the teacher to go away. I pulled the plug from the assembly and told them all to go back to class since they couldn't behave like human beings.
Every single Freshman teacher came up to me and told me that this class does not deserve to have a semi formal dance based on their behavior. I agreed. So, we all went to the administration to tell them what happened and the administration supported me by cancelling the dance.
We called an emergency assembly at the end of the day to talk to the kids about their behavior and try and get them to realize that there would be consequences for their behavior. At the second assembly, they continued to be rude even to the Principal! I was horrified! The decision was made to cancel the dance. The kids were angry and upset. Unfortunately, the problem was the silent majority of the kids were behaving but they are afraid of the obnoxious kids and voicing their opinions. At the second assembly, the Freshman Housemaster told the kids that those students that are fed up with the minority of idiots in the building that ruin the school environment should start to take back their school. I told one of my classes that when one of their classmates acts up, tell them to knock it off. Speak up!
So, now I'm dealing with parents called and complaining about cancelling the dance. There needs to be consequences for their actions - even the good students. The good students are just as guilty since they did not speak up to their classmates that ruined the assembly for the entire class.
And to add more fun to my day, I had a parent meeting today after school regarding an issue of forging a grade on a paper and claiming that I made the mistake. The marked grade clearly was not my handwriting.
As I sit here tonight exhausted and emotionally drained from all the drama and meetings I had to sit in today, I think to myself, "Why did I agree to be a class adviser again????"
I will be resigning my position of class adviser at the end of the school year. This event clearly pushed me over the edge but there were other issues as well. My officers not doing any of the work or organizing for the Fling dance, the officers blowing off meetings after school and then lying to me about why they can't show up for a 20 minute meeting after school, and the woman that is in charge of all the advisers not providing any support to me are just a few more reasons why I can't be the class adviser any longer.
That was my day in a nut shell. Oh, and I was supposed to teach my three classes in a row today. So, how many of you want to run out become a teacher?????
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1 comment:
I cannot believe how those students behaved! The disrespect is awful! And for the parents to blame the school faculty is even more absurd! No wonder the country is falling apart! I worry so much about what the world is going to be like for my children. At the direction that it seems to be going... it's unthinkable... the mass chaos! I wish there was a way to make people see how destructive this behavior is! The sad thing is that I think the majority of our country knows that this type of behavior is an outrage but they don't seem to have the courage to stand up to the stupid ones and we're all rolling over to let them ruin everything. I don't understand it and don't know why this is? I'm doing my part,though, as a parent and teaching my children that this type of behavior is unacceptable and morally wrong. Hopefully, then there will be 2 more people in the world teaching their children the same and so forth. What else can we do? I feel your frustration even though you are living it on a completely different level than I am. Keep your chin up and do your best! Just don't bring it home with you! And keep venting on your blog...it's good to 'get it out' of your system! :)
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