Work, Part II

Let me say that I really like where I work. Our school isn't perfect, but we have some committed teachers and a strong, fair, and caring principal and vice-principal. We have a very heterogeneous community of students, ethnically and socio-economically. We are really making some terrific gains in our test scores . . . there is a lot about which to be proud. I decided -- after about nine years at a different school -- to move to the school that I am at, and I have never regretted that decision. The first year was rough, though. It was my tenth year teaching, but it felt like my first in some ways.

For one thing, I had to get used to a new grade level's curriculum. There were worksheets and graphic organizers to make up and new projects to plan out, because the ideas that come with the teacher's edition are just that -- ideas. There's no handout that comes with all of the materials that really explains this terrific idea to the students--what's expected of them, how to complete the assignment, how they will be graded. At least, I've never really found the handouts that come with a new textbook adoption adequate, so I spend a lot of time adapting them or innovating them to fit for my students, my management style, and our district's grading rubrics. So I had to do all of that, and reacquaint myself with world history from roughly the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Age of Enlightenment (Africa, rise of Islam and Muslim Empires, medieval Japan, Tang through Ming dynasties in China, feudal Europe, etc.), and bone up on what language arts standards my students were to master at that grade level. (I teach both language arts and world history.) And everything I created was new; since I was teaching a new grade level, I couldn't simply open my file cabinet and take out last year's organizer and tweak it a bit for a new group of kids. It was all brand new.

Also, I would be piloting a new program at our school -- a technological component. Technology doesn't scare me, and I looked forward to working with the program. I love my computer and my gadgets . . . ! (What did p*** me off, though, was that the district wasn't giving me a lot of ideas about how to implement this program. Their idea of support was to tell me how to work the applications on the computer -- which I already knew how to do -- not give me some good ideas about how to integrate these programs with curriculum and standards. So I had to come up with these ideas on my own . . . but that's a long other story.)

Thirdly, of course, I needed to teach and assess. The assessing can take a LONG time . . . imagine 90 to 100 essays to grade with comments on each. It's a drag.

So I was doing all three of these concurrently . . . it left me working twelve-hour days sometimes, guilty for grading papers on the couch rather than playing with my kids at night, too tired to have sex with my husband, dead exhausted on the weekend.

BUT I WAS DOING A GOOD JOB, I thought. I really felt like I was being effective as a teacher, competent . . . I was having those good teaching days I talked about in the last post.

So imagine how assaulted I felt when a group of parents decided that I wasn't doing a good enough job! That I didn't know what I was doing on the computer, that their child wasn't doing enough writing, that I was not "challenging" their student(s) enough -- their child was bored and hated coming to my class! -- and that I was the most disorganized teacher they'd ever encountered. (The last accusation, that I was disorganized, was particularly wounding to me because I take pride in how clean and orderly my classroom is. The Type A teacher that I am, I put other teachers to absolute shame with how organized I am.) And did they confront me with these comments? No, they went straight to my new principal, who, upon hearing all of these comments, I felt sure was regretting she'd let me come to her school.

My anxiety started to rise. I was really worried. I thought I was doing so well. I felt like all was fine. It was a challenge, but I was meeting it all. I stewed and worried all weekend. (One particular mother, the straw that broke this camel's back, ranted for nearly 25 minutes at me on a Thursday evening, and we didn't have school the next day.) As the anxiousness increased, my eating and sleeping decreased. I probably even felt sick to my stomach and thew up a few times. (That's my MO.) I cried. A lot.

These parents touched a raw nerve in me. I felt so inadequate and caught completely by surprise. I hate being caught by surprise. [My HC was the mother of all (horrific) surprises.] At least let me worry about a few possible scenarios, so that if one of them happens, I at least have already thought out in a rudimentary way how I can cope. Couldn't they see how hard I was working? Obviously they didn't, so I would just have to work harder. Want challenge? Okay, I'll give you challenge. But then they complained it was too much. They were never satisfied. BUT, by the end of the year, I think I had proven myself. One mother, who wrote me a scathing email in October -- I burst into tears when I read it -- said, at the end of the year, "Thank you. You have really worked hard. I'm sorry we were so hard on you." But she was the only one.

It turns out that my principal has never regretted having me come to her school for a second. She never did, even when those parents were so vocal. She realized, I think, that they were a tough set of parents, because they were tough on her too, and not just tough about me. As the year progressed, we were almost able to joke about it: "Mrs. X called me today," she'd tell me, kinda rolling her eyes a bit. "Oh yeah? What am I doing wrong now?" I'd retort.

The thing is . . . and this is the second major reason, besides the HC and a school year abruptly cut short three months ago, that I am anxious to return to school. Because those students have younger siblings . . . and some of them will be in my classes again this year. Which means I will be interacting with those parents again. And that doesn't make me especially excited to return to work. I already feel like not only do I have to be "on guard" with my feelings at work concerning grieving my HC, but also I will have this constant defensiveness around them. Are you going to ask me snappy questions again? Will you greet me icily or will you deign to smile at me as you say hello? Am I still going to have to prove myself to you?

I knew these students were coming up through the grades. That's one of the things that excited me about being pregnant and due in September. I knew that I would be able to come back to school, introduce myself, and then take half of the year off and not have to deal with them until January. And then I'd be so blissed out by having a cute baby, who cared? I would only have to face them for half a year. I could do half a year. Now I have to do a whole year.

Ugh.