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2002-01-22 - 6:35 p.m. Exercise: 30 minutes on Gazelle, 60 crunches. My calves still hurt. Have you ever just had one of those days? You know, the ones that make you want to rethink your whole career, your whole life, your whole existance? I had one of those days. It all started out with me waking up at 7:45 AM. I look at my alarm clock, the one I bought that is battery powered so that I would not sleep in if the power went out, and it says 2:00 AM. Oh good, I think, but why is it light out at 2:00 AM? I jumped out of bed and saw the real time and freaked out. I have no idea what woke me up, but I am certainly glad I managed to wake up without the alarm. I leave at 7:55 so that I can get to work by 8:00 AM, so this was not a good time to wake up. Luckily I took a shower fairly late yesterday so I wasn't too disgusting, since I didn't have time to take one. Anyway I made it by 8:02 AM (class starts at 8:30). I was so relieved/happy/estatic. The day just went badly altogether, no particular incident. I just felt frazzled and hopeless and all of that. Even my good classes weren't the greatest. It just seemed that everyone did not want to do a single bit of work. I think the reason some teachers lecture all period is that they are afraid of what would happen if they give the kids time to work on stuff. My students didn't do anything today, except for third and fifth. I felt pissed off and ready to tear my hair out. I would definitely take a mental health day tomorrow if it wasn't right in the middle of the last week of the semester. The kids need me to be there tomorrow. On the good side, I do have grade printouts ready to go for the seniors now. I scored all their journals. One thing about the journals is that students feel free to talk to me in them. I enjoy hearing their concerns or frustrations or compliments. However, sometimes if I am in the wrong mood I just don't want to hear it. I've opened myself up many times to the kids to ask them how they think the class is going and what could be improved and what they need to be successful. I don't mind feedback. On the other hand, I am a highly sensitive person. I was reading some of the journals today and I just felt like screaming. Kids don't realize that equal and fair are not the same thing. I moved a group of six kids apart from one another in my awful senior class. They were constantly talking, even when I was talking, even when I was reading. This was in contrast to another group of kids in there (three boys) who are often talking (but mainly to the whole class, not just side conversations, and usually do not talk when I am talking or when we are reading aloud.) I even did it in a reasonable way, where I moved three to one part of the room and left the other three in back (where, incidentally, they still talk to each other. The three in front are now good). Well they complained in their journals about how it was unfair and why didn't I move R and his group of friends apart too. They have a point, on the one hand, but on the other I felt like they were being worse and they were doing it in a more rude towards me way. Do I feel like explaining all that to them in their journals? No. Do I feel like I have to explain it since they addressed it? Yes. Did they say it was unfair in a rude way? No. Do I feel like shit anyway? Yes. Do I question whether I might have been playing favorites? Yes. Another girl mentioned that there were behavior problems in that period. She is a smart girl and seemed to think perhaps these students felt they were not being challenged by the class and that is why they misbehave. Sometimes I agree that my class is not challenging enough. On the other hand, if it was not challenging enough, wouldn't more kids be getting A's? She is one of the few in that class that are. I like it that they want to talk to me about such things, but I guess today was just not the day to hear it. It made me question my whole grading policy, my whole review method, everything. It made me feel like a loser who is like Lipschitz was talking about on Boston Public. A teacher that knows they are crappy but doesn't do enough about it. I know that's not true, but I sure felt like it. Positive things: nice conversations with kids in third and fourth period. One girl stayed after to talk to me about her interest in the Holocaust since I lent her a book I found on it when she mentioned she was interested in that time period. Another nice day with seventh period. Hey, remember the dream I mentioned to seventh period that ended with me crying because two kids were fighting? One of my kids from that period told me he had a dream last night about me. It involved my husband (?) coming to work at the school and me getting really upset with him and telling him he needed to have more respect and I started crying. How funny is that? I thought it was quite odd. Oh well, I'm off to exercise now.
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