Find x

I am not sure how administrators decide who to pick on in their school, but I have always thought it went something like this: the staff roster is put on a dart board.  The principal puts on a blindfold, turns around three times, and then throws a dart at the roster.  He/she does this two times.  The first name that is hit is the person in the building that can do no wrong.  The second name is the person who can do no right.  A Golden Boy and a Whipping Boy as it were.

I have been at four schools.  I’ve had at least ten principals and about as twice as many assistant principals.  I’ve taught in affluent areas, middle class areas, and in low income schools.  I’ve had good principals (a handful) bad ones, sexist ones, incompetent ones, and unqualified ones (being a speech therapist does not mean you know anything about instruction no matter what college classes you have taken or how inflated your sense of self is.  If you haven’t taught, you don’t belong in a position that evaluates how others do it, period).  

I work in a school that has, for the most part, and outstanding staff.  They are dedicated, passionate, and they work their asses off. 

And then there are the few, the lame, the “I’m doing you all a favor by showing up” types.  In fact, we have an entire grade level team that pretty much belittles, threatens, and bullies their students.  They have no regard for individual needs.  There is a teacher of very young children who yells and puts kids in the corner.

Guess which teachers our admin is riding hard?

I don’t know why this happens.  I wish I did.  I think my administrator is a compassionate, caring,  and responsible leader.  But there are blind spots.  Quibbling over which words to teach in a phonics lesson.  Bringing pencil pushing middle management types from the curriculum office out to a strong, skilled and hard working team to point out all the things they are doing wrong.  Ignoring the teacher at the end of the hall who pretty much showed movies for her social studies instruction for a month last year.

My guess is it has to do with test scores.

If you class has good scores, you are off the hook.  The ends clearly justify the means.  And the means can translate into excluding some students from meaningful instruction if they don’t fit the mold. 

Every year I sit in meetings where we are shown graphs and charts that say students with special education services aren’t scoring as well as the other kids.   And the unspoken message seems to be “it’s your fault.” If doesn’t matter if my student can read books he loves independently, or write a complete sentence without help now.  He’s not making the cut.  He’s not scoring well.   And somehow I am to blame. 

I’m told, “he needs to be able to develop strategies to read grade level text.  That should be in his IEP.”

Well, if he could read grade level text, he wouldn’t need a fucking IEP because he wouldn’t be learning disabled. Learning disabilities aren’t something kids grow out of.  They don’t suddenly find Jesus one summer and come back in the fall able to read and write as well as the other kids.  They may always need a calculators because their number sense and rote memory is poor.  I took Algebra for three years and I remember nothing.  I spent three years never getting better, never quite understanding, always struggling to get a C.  I could have taken Algebra for another three years and I would still have not been able to tell you was x equaled.  X equals your mom, okay?

White Lady Bullshit

My mom and I were invited to her best friend’s new place for the 4th.  Her daughter and grandchild were there, as well as the other grandparent and some of her daughter’s friends.  Her daughter is a self-described motivational speaker and talks a lot about running.  She posts stuff to get validation from others about how good of a mom she is, how pretty she is, and how inspirational her words are.  I am FB friends with her (we grew up together and I used to be her sitter), but I don’t follow her because I really don’t need someone on the internet always telling me to “be the best me I can be.”

Anyway, after we ate lunch, I dozed on the couch because I had some wine and I usually don’t drink, so it kind of knocked me out. (BTW honey peach wine is lovely and I almost didn’t taste the vinegar that I always taste with most wines). My mom and her friend were in the kitchen talking, the little girl (grandchild) was alternating between watching TV and screaming, and the daughter and the other guests were engaging in what I call “Self Absorbed White Lady Bullshit” in the dining room. (Even thought she is half Chinese, she is engaging in some seriously White Nonsense so I am lumping her in with them).  One of the friends had her tarot cards and she was doing readings.  Everyone else was sooo into her “readings.”  The runner/motivational speaker was talking about how people loved her raw emotions in her blog and how someone told her she has a “masculine energy,” my eyes were rolling so hard that I saw my own brain.  I feigned sleep for the rest of the visit until it was time to go. (I really don’t care what people get out of my blog. I write pretty much for my own therapy and I will write if and when I feel like it regardless of readership).

Years ago, I was into Paganism because I wanted to find a meaning to life and a sense of belonging in a community.  The spark of skepticism that I had as a Catholic kept burning through those years and in the end I abandoned all of it because it was just the same bullshit with different trappings.  I am friends with one person from that embarrassing time of my life.   She is also a skeptic, but she still experiences some weird shit and she podcasts about it with her bestie and her daughter.  I respect that they experience weird shit, and she is the first person to say she is skeptical as hell.  I just don’t share her interpretation of those experiences or her preoccupation with the Mothman.

Over the years, the skeptic in me has grown so strong that I cannot abide by this kind of bullshit in my vicinity.  I avoid holy rollers who talk about gawd near me in Target lines, grocery stores, and parking lots (where they seem to like to witness to me). It was almost physically painful to hear these women talk about how The Universe works and how they put out certain things into the world and that energy comes back to them etc.  I wanted to scream, “The Universe doesn’t give a shit about you.  We are specks.  I am sure people in concentration camps wanted The Universe to “take care of them” but they died horrible deaths.  Get over yourselves.”

Instead, my mom and I went to the grocery store, I came home and had a lovely nap, and today I will go to the pool.  I will try to rinse my brain of the horrid nonsensical bullshit I had to hear yesterday.*

*Nonsense which included discussion of gluten because Self Absorbed White Ladies love to talk about gluten.

Let’s go to the dentist

I had a dentist I loved. I saw her for over 20 years and then my insurance decided to fuck that up for me and now she is out of network.

Carefirst/Blue Cross is a shitshow to deal with, so I went with a new dentist that my mom saw. The guy who used to have the practice retired so when I got my teeth cleaned it was by a woman who looked young enough to be my child.

Did someone drive her here? How is she old enough to go through dental school?

I am at that age where everyone looks so terribly young to me. And the grocery store has been playing some great music lately. Yeah, I’m that age.

Anyway, she told me I needed 2 fillings replaced. One which was fairly new was leaking (whatever that means) and one of my ancient amalgam fillings was cracking.

The pediatric dentist who did my amalgams did not like my crying.

And I am a big cryer. A big cryer that had 4 cavities at the age of four. I cried so much once that bastard made me give back my prize from the treasure box. It was a small yellow plastic car with black wheels.

Who the fuck makes a kid give back the shitty prize from the treasure box?

Anyway, I have a ton of anxiety about the dentist. The sound of the drill makes me break into a cold sweat. I doubled up on anxiety meds and took an Uber so I didn’t have to drive while tripping balls.

The dentist and her assistant were fantastic. Empathetic, kind, and so very patient. She told me to raise my left hand if I needed them to stop and they’d stop no matter what. When I was getting the enormously huge needle for the novacaine, the assistant put her hand on my arm.

It was a small gesture, but to me, it meant the world.

I got through both fillings by listening to music on some noise cancelling headphones, breathing deeply, and trusting the people who were working on me.

My tongue felt gigantic for a while, I was numb for hours, but I felt good. I just at some pizza (which, despite coming from a crappy chain is still a comfort thing for me) and now I am binge watching Monk and contemplating another nap.

I keep thinking of the kindness the dental assistant extended to me. Her hand just resting on my forearm.

I am here. You are not alone.

Hooray…summer vacation

I may be the only teacher who does not look forward to summer vacation. While everyone else is doing countdowns on their social media accounts or in their classrooms, I fight a rising tide of anxiety over how I will keep myself busy and sane with so much unstructured time.

The word “summer vacation” usually stirs images of being on the beach, playing in the pool, taking road trips under a golden sun, and all the other stock photo-like tropes that pop up when I type those words into a google image search.

For me, it is oppressive heat that keeps me from doing much outside. It keeps me from sitting on my porch and reading. It keeps me from gardening, walking my dog, or exercising outside. It keeps me from enjoying anything for long when I step outside my door because I instantly become enveloped in hot, humid air that covers me in sweat in a matter of minutes. Summer can suck it.

The anticipatory anxiety starts in May. Then it comes and goes until sometime in July when summer school begins.

If I am traveling (which I do every few years) then I’m pretty ok. My trips usually take me years to save up for and months to plan. Since COVID has pretty much taken all that off the table this year and probably next year, I have been working on things I can do to stay busy. I teach summer school, meet up with friends, paint my apartment, volunteer, and generally try to keep myself from having full on panic attacks.

Last year was bad. My tinnitus got much worse in one ear and I was teaching remotely. It was a terrifying and lonely time. I struggled for weeks before getting the right supports. The memory of last summer looms over me and the anxiety is creeping up. Tomorrow I get 2 fillings so I am also having some feelings about that.

I know I am not the only teacher who struggles with mental health, but I may be the only one who openly talks about it with people close to me at school. I used to worry about people judging me based on my mental health issues. It took me a long time to realize that their judgment reflects more on them than on me.

My tinnitus got really bad due to antibiotics while I was student teaching and my anxiety was horrible for months.

Yet somehow I graduated with honors.

So I am swimming in familiar waters as I surround myself with white noise and cricket sounds. I dog paddle through the waves of doubt, fear, and sadness. I repeat the same phrase when it gets really bad: “keep going.” So I do. After tomorrow I will volunteer at a place I enjoy, and after that we have some trainings in my building.

I will swim at my complex’s pool. I will dog paddle for real and be thankful I have made it this far.

I will look for fall decorations in the craft store.

I will count down the days until Halloween.

Field Day

This year we made our way back into the building full time and I was overjoyed to see my students in person again. I may or may not have given and received a few pandemic hugs. We more or less returned to some sense of “normal” whatever that is, and I have loved almost every minute of it. Teaching in leggings and shorts was nice, but returning to a routine where I put on real clothes and drove to work and saw people felt amazing.

What has been equally amazing has been two years of no testing, and no Field Day.

I know lots of kids and adults just love field day. The excitement of competition, the team building spirit as each group cheers their teammates on in the tie die shirts their class made the week before, the adrenaline rush of racing to the finish line with an egg on a spoon…all of it has eluded me since I was a very young child.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see the joy it brings others, and field day has brought so much joy to so many. I’m just not one of the people who has ever felt that joy for herself.

In my small Catholic school, I was kind of stuck with the same small group of kids in my grade for eight years, and I quickly established myself as the weird kid who read during recess and drew horses in the back of class when I should have been paying attention. I was that kid. (Oh and I was, and still am a cryer but I no longer apologize for it. I process strong emotions by crying. If it makes you uncomfortable that isn’t my fucking problem).

What was equally weird is the fact that my best childhood friend was a total jock two years my junior who excelled at everything related to gross motor skills. She was way ahead of me on lots of things- even in the boob department. In the 6th grade I was wearing her hand me down training bras because she had busted out of them by the 4th grade. I didn’t need a training bra mind you, but I wanted some semblance of fitting in and that did not include the visible undershirts I had been wearing under our white uniform blouses.

Anyway, I was so bad at the basics that our PE teacher (who was amazing and kind to me when others would have just given up) arranged for a group of us to be pulled out of academic classes to partake in what I have dubbed “remedial PE.”

I am not making this up.

I was such a good student that the powers that be thought I could skip a few classes so that I could learn how to swing a bat, throw and catch a ball, not to be a complete washout at dodge ball. (It was the 70s and 80s so dodgeball, the horrible Lord of the Fucking Flies bullshit was still permitted).

While they had the best of intentions, we all know what they say about that, and I continued to be the dorky kid who could not get her hair to feather well enough to get someone to hold my hand during couples skate at Skateland.

So, Field Day.

We didn’t really have it in elementary school, but the all girls Catholic school I attended was into it. Like, really, really into it.

Field Day at my high school consisted of not only the sports, but a theme, costumes, a song and dance routine, props, and some other fuckery I have managed to block out. There were also a shit ton of rules about the costume which consisted of the incorporation of our horrible gym uniform, a budget, and the fact that they had to be home made from whatever we found in a dumpster.

Each grade competed against the other and the judges awarded points for our creativity and performance. All in all, I was not big into the ra ra bullshit. I was not into group projects, sports, singing, dancing, or running. Our school was not air conditioned so we got to do all this in a stuffy gym crammed with 400+ people. Oh, and if you decided you didn’t want to participate in any of this, your grade was deducted points.

I decided by junior year I was willing to take that risk because Field Day was stupid and my parents were paying enough money for me to attend this school so I could Prepare for College and Stay a Virgin so my participation in Field Day was beyond my and their obligations to the school.

I managed to take classes for my PE credits in college by enrolling in stuff like Camping, Self Defense for Women, and Modern Dance. I enjoyed them because it wasn’t competitive and we had fun.

Then when I began teaching, I did my best to participate in recess so I could be the Cool Teacher, but it didn’t take long for them to realize that despite being tall I could not dunk a ball, throw a ball, or generally do much with balls besides get hit in the face with them. (That’s what she said).

I’ve been hit in the face with a volley ball, a basket ball, a soccer ball, a soft ball, and a lacrosse ball. The latter hurts the most. So very much.

When I transferred to schools where Field Day was a thing, I slathered on the sunblock and helped out as best as I could because I didn’t have a homeroom by then and I wanted to be a Team Player.

But baking in the sun watching children fall over whilst tied together is not my idea of a good time and every fucking year it just reinforces the memories of hearing kids say “hit her first, she’s the slow one.”

I like my PE teacher at my current school and I help out every year, dutifully hauling out equipment, taking over stations (I like to joke that we should all be drinking Bud Light and calling ourselves Nick or Brandon when I help out a the cornhole game), and making sure no one gets killed.

After getting the Worst Kindergarten Class Ever Because Their Teacher Sits on Her Ass All Year and Does Nothing, I decided that maybe I could volunteer to watch the other kids who, like me, dread Field Day, PE, and outdoor recess.

Maybe we can hang in the library and read.

Maybe we can color or I can lead a craft activity. I am an excellent crafter. When I had a resource room, we did some hella amazing crafts for every season. Even the Muslim kids were into making kick ass reindeers. If you need a bulletin board or a craft, I’m your girl. You need me to judge the hula hoop contest, give me a gallon of ice water, a chair, and some kind of shade. I’m pasty as fuck and the heat gives me an asthma attack.

But that probably isn’t going to happen so next year, I’ll be out there in the sun, hoping I didn’t miss a spot with my Neutrogena SPF 70 counting the minutes until it is all over and I can have an Iced Mocha Latte from Dunkin Donuts on the way home.

In the meantime, I am working on my own fitness by walking and jogging for 30 whole seconds. I got a jump rope and I can manage 20 repetitions without fucking up and tripping on my feet, but I keep doing it so my A1C gets better and I don’t wind up with diabetes like everyone else in my family who reaches middle age.

And after I exercise, I sit on my porch, look at my garden, and I read a book.

I’d Like To Thank The Academy

I didn’t go into education for the pay or the fame. I didn’t go into it for the loads of support and respect educators are afforded in this country.

I didn’t choose to become a special educator for any of those reasons either. My students are dyslexic, have ADHD, are autistic, have shitty home lives where parents are disengaged, addicted, and sometimes incarcerated or shot by police.

Many also struggle with their mental health like I do. (I can spot an anxious kid or a kid with OCD a mile away).

The place where I am now is wonderful. Plentiful supplies, amazing kids, and admins who aren’t abusive narcissists (a nice change).

Most of the teachers I work with are also wonderful. They work their asses off. The last 18 months have tested all of our strengths and I’ve seen my colleagues achieve the impossible- all while our school system has given us minimal support or clear information. Our superintendent had the grace to throw us all under the bus when there wasn’t enough bandwidth to go around…because gawd forbid they admit that they didn’t purchuse enough. It has to be the teacher’s fault. Because, everything fucking is, isn’t it?

But today I am not feeling it. As in, I’m in a room doing paperwork, trying to push down the bile rising in my throat from being so angry.

Today I am trying not to tell the grade level I work with to collectively go fuck themselves.

Because the isn’t professional. Calling them cunts isn’t nice. But they are, collectively, cunts.

They resent the special ed kids in their rooms. They do not follow the IEPs. I give them snapshots and reach out as much as possible so they understand who is in their room, and I offer my support in modifying work and co planning.

And I swear they take those snapshots into the staff bathroom and wipe their asses with them.

They change schedules around and don’t tell me.

They complain about kids who are four grade levels below their current plancement as if I can pull some fairy dust out of my pocket and fix them.

Every meeting I sit in on is just an endless laundry list of all the things the students can’t do. General and special ed. And it is like this Every. Year. Every. Meeting.

My administators know that I am over these fuckers so I am not going to be with them next year.

Anyway, today was online graduation. For the most part, it was great. The slideshow, the speeches, the awards- all of it was great. Even the kids with IEPs were recognized and I cheered.

Then it came time to thank the teachers.

The Paraprofessional, the math resource teacher, the admins, all were thanked.

But no one said a word about me.

I have worked with these kids for three years. I know their lives, their families, and I have a good relationship with them. They are my life, my reason for getting up in the morning, the reason I haven’t quit this profession and worked for more money and fewer hours in an office somewhere.

I get an incredible amount of joy from what I do.

I just want this grade level to treat the special educators in our building like people. Like a real teacher. Because we are. We went through dual certification and additional training to do it.

Just once, I’d like to be able to sit up on the stage during graduation. But it doesn’t happen. Not in this school, and not in the last school. We are overlooked for trainings, meetings, materials, and space. I have worked in a storage closet in a school without air conditioning.

I’ve worked in a room with a half dozen other adults.

I’ve worked in the hallway.

Things have improved vastly for my department with the new admins. We are no longer reduced to tears by a principal who took sadistic joy in making everyone in the building cry.

But they don’t stand up for us against this group of teachers. Teachers, who, berate, yell at, and punish students for not walking fast enough in the hall or for not having a pencil (kids with executive functioning issues don’t have pencils ever. Die mad about it).

Why is this?

Why is this one group of people feared and allowed to pretty much do and say whatever they want?

It makes me feel like I am back in first grade with Sister M playing favorites.

And I hate that.

I hate that moments like this can take me back to over forty fucking years ago.

As I get older, I am better about letting stuff go.

But days like today, it is hard.

So hard.

I’m taking a long lunch.