2003-08-08 - 9:00 p.m.
So this girl answered the questions in my education survey. Apart from the fact that she made some thoughtlessly mean remarks there (and in her diary) about mental retardation, I was struck by her seemingly uniform dislike of school and teachers.
That was me in high school. I hated school and all of my teachers.
I was at an inservice today with about 150 other teachers and I was looking around at them and thinking about how they all --- ALL --- probably entered the profession with such high hopes of changing the system, making a difference, helping kids to get ahead, doing the very best that they could. Because cynicism aside, folks, we get paid shit. I have an MA and I make less than your average newly minted BA. So these people didn't get into teaching for the money.
Ah, you say, but where is that idealism when that bitch in second period makes a sarcastic remark about my homework?
People, it's just that, somewhere along the way, some of them got tired, or got co-opted, or got pushed down so often they stopped trying to get up. They got tired of being exploited and blamed and taken for granted. Case in point, our principal had the gall the other day to say that the school is our family and that if we are doing our jobs correctly we should be ready at the drop of a hat to stay all night at school working on stuff if it's necessary.
Can you blame all those people who've been in for 30 years for getting burned out?
And that doesn't even include the crap teachers get from students. OK, yeah, your second period government teacher was sarcastic to you. But has she ever threatened your life, made obscene phone calls to your house, keyed your car, assaulted you, cursed you out in class? Of course not.
So spare a little compassion for all those mean old teachers, those bitter folks that you revile. Once upon a time they had high ideals, and who's to say they still don't, buried somewhere deep inside?
Opal
