The Trouble with Teaching: What are Sick Days?

Monday was my first day back at work after a two week break, and I returned to an entirely new crop of students. In the teaching profession your first week with a new batch is a carefully structured dance. One misstep could lead to a potentially disastrous term.

I spent the last three days of my break carefully planning each step, which, as with most things, is a completely futile task. Unpredictability is the only thing that I can count on with any certainty at work. Of course, Tuesday night, after an ass-kicking strength training workout, I noticed I was starting to loose my voice. By about 2 am Wednesday morning, my throat hurt so bad that I couldn't sleep. After 6 hours in bed, only about 3 of it spent sleeping, I was off to work again with my new, scratchy voice.

Now, I think that there are sneaky little elves that hide in classroom closets and spy on teachers and push them almost to their breaking point, but never quite over. At my school we are on a block schedule. There are only 4 90-minute periods in a day, and one of them is our prep. Luckily, it seems that, so far at least, two of the classes I am teaching this semester are completely angelic. Their effort level and work quality has been high, and there are absolutely no behavior problems to speak of. For two of my classes.

But the third class, my second period, will definitely make me rethink the teaching profession before the end of the semester. How do I know, because in my short tenure as a teacher, I have come to realize that there is always at least one class that makes sure that you don't become too confident in your abilities as an educator. There has to be one class that keeps you feeling like you have absolutely no idea what the fuck you are doing. Why? Because teaching is like an abusive spouse, beating the shit out of you one minute and then giving you the teeniest tiniest glimmer of hope every once in awhile so that you will never leave.

I think my 2nd period class might ultimately lead to my demise. Right now I have a very reasonable 30 students enrolled, but 22 are boys. If you have ever been in a room for 90 minutes with a group of 22 boys, you know what a constant struggle it is to get them just to stay in a seat, let alone go the entire time without yelling out an off-color remark about another student's mom. Today one of them, B, brought a little plastic figurine of the 3-eyed alien from toy story and insisted it was his brother. No joke. 90 minutes of the little alien watching me. Why didn't I take it away, you ask. Because, having his "brother" on his desk led to completion of more work today than I've seen all week. You have to choose your battles. Also, 5 of the 30 students are classified as having special needs. No, B, isn't one of them. I checked twice.

I study these kids at length, make countless calls home, referrals to counselors and administrators, threaten, bribe and use every tool in my weaponry to get them to learn something. A sub has very few weapons in their arsenal, and I assure you, they would be no match for this, my testosterone-laden 2nd period class. The last time I had a class like this and left them with a sub, despite some serious threatening and bribing on my part, I still got a report that several students tried to climb the shelving units in the back of my classroom. And I have a name for subs who don't leave those kinds of reports: LIARS!

So, though I should have spent the rest of the week in bed, I dragged my sorry butt to work, and taught the rest of the week without much of a voice. Blech. I guess you can figure out that my weigh loss journey took a back seat this week. I missed weigh-in, but did manage to work out 4 days. I'll be spending the weekend in bed, trying not to die.

Happy New Year!

I'm not one for New Years Resolutions, because I know from experience that they rarely hang around to see February. But a new year does present new opportunities, and a break from the endless festivities of the late fall and early winter.

2009 was rough. The economy tanked, leading to a mass exodus of people from the Central Valley where I live/teach. The roller coaster that was 2009 started early on, with all district-wide budgets secretly frozen while we were gone for winter break. When we returned, word of the freeze sent everyone into a panic, and the district announced that we should all start preparing for the worst. As a 2nd year teacher, I of course got my first ever pink-slip just before the dreaded March 15th deadline. On May 15th, I was told that I'd still have a job, but the district was bumping me to another school. In July, right before returning to work, I was brought back to my school for my third year of teaching. As soon as we returned, they announced that the cuts would likely be worse this year. Its no wonder that 50% of new teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years. Learning from the chaos of last year, I'm choosing to ignore it until I definitely have no job, but I've got an up-to-date resume and letters of reference just in case.

2009 did bring some fantastic things. Both of my sisters got married to men that I absolutely adore. A couple of weeks ago, DBF of 4 years became DF during a trip to Napa. I have also accomplished quite a bit, including:

• maintaining my weight (between 165-170) for the first time in my adult life. Sure this is far from goal, but no yo-yoing.
• I didn't get a single overdraft charge for an entire year. Holy shitake, I think that makes me nearly a responsible, financially sound adult.
  
• I paid off all of my credit card debt.
  
• I finished my teaching credential program and upped my status from intern to full-fledged teacher, which essentially just means I get paid like a real person.
• I did a half marathon, and only wanted to die for the last 4 miles, and only got beat by one lady with no legs.

And now that life may be settling down for at least a month or two (though I'm prepared for anything to turn around at any moment), its time to get my shit in gear. I've already had the talk with DF, that he is no longer allowed to pick me up a bottle of wine on the way home from work and that I'd like us to attempt to not enable eachother in our bad habits.

I weighed in today, slightly hungover at 169.0, and ready to get this weight loss journey back on track.