Long week

This is the first five full teaching days in a week I have had for quite some time now, and this week's a rough one. It's only Wednesday and I have sent five students to the office with referrals, one of them twice. Today a girl in Algebra decided that it was necessary to take a swing at a classmate, and the consequences laid upon her resulted in profanity to my face. This kind of thing didn't so much phase me at the beginning of the year, but I thought we had improved from then!

These kinds of daily happenings are so discouraging. More and more often I feel like I have run out of ideas and tactics for these ninth graders. But again and again I think of the rule to practice your weaknesses, not your strengths. Now, it's all relative - but Geometry is definitely my strength, and because of this, I find that I would much rather spend the majority of my time planning for this class and I always end up leaving the Algebra planning to last. Even as I type, I am planned for Geometry for tomorrow, but not Algebra. I am self-aware enough to know that I am somewhat feeding the problem, but my exhaustion prevents me from fixing this problem... especially this week, when it feels like even my soul is exhausted. Over-dramatic, I know.

Sometimes with the stories you hear when living around other teachers, all of our bad weeks seem to coincide, and all we can think and talk about is how much we want the week to be over - not always because of the going to bed late, getting up early, and working, but because sometimes it just feels like a weekend is necessary right at that moment to wash away the crappy things that have made their imprint on the week. Case in point: yesterday, at my roommate's school - middle school, mind you - three kids brought guns to school, and now they are all arrested. The thing I find most upsetting is that these middle schoolers thought it was worth the risk of being expelled to bring the firearm to school, which means they are not invested in this whole education thing to begin with. No wonder this job is hard.

On the bright side of things, the English Department at Richmond hosted Poetry Out Loud, a poetry recitation competition, in the Student Center at school. Disregarding the fact that teachers gave out boatloads of extra credit for their students showing up after school, it was nice to see that amidst everything else at this school, there are still some all-star kids that care. A lot, actually. But it's tough - on the one hand, I have to focus on my top performers and most improved students to help motivate me (and support my emotional health!), but on the other hand, I can't ignore my problem students or else I'm not doing what I came here to do. As you can see, my only hope for temporary peace of mind is still two days away.