Contrast

We had a faculty meeting in which many things were discussed. Hallway passes, midterm exam review days, Saturday detentions (Breakfast Club, anyone?), and the like. Almost none of it had to do with me. I have a bathroom in my classroom, so no one needs a hall pass-- I could go on, but it is enervating to even think of it. The bottom line is that I spent the meeting thinking about how much I don't care about any of it. About how being in a high school is all wrong for me.

The next night I had my class. Because of the timing and how far away I live from work and the class site, I don't go home in between work and class. This means that I leave my house at 6:30, hang around after school from 2:00 to 4:00, have class from 4:30-8:30, and get home after 9:00. It makes for a long day. Yet, sitting in class that night talking about phonemic awareness I felt interested and excited, even though I can imagine most people finding the topic boring. It just seems that teaching reading is what I should be doing, not the catch-all that I am doing as a result of being a self-contained classroom teacher. Math, science, history, vocational skills, cooking, budgeting.... I love my students but not teaching them the things I have to.

Another teacher wrote this on a board I visit, and summed up a lot my thoughts right now about my job and the sources of frustration:

Special education teachers often have little or no curriculum, little or no planning time, attend staff
meetings that do not address their needs,... are required to attend endless meetings... what
staff is given often has a high turnover rate, receives little or no time to train or communicate with their staff and when they request help from the specialists, they are given all kinds of visuals and behavior charts to make, but have no time to make them, let alone staff to keep the data....