Tuesday, February 11, 2003
And today I give up.I've had bad days in the past. And, I suppose, on the whole this one truly doesn't make the top of the list. The kids have been lovely, on and off, and an impromptu observation went extraordinarily well today. We quizzed, we took notes, we were happy. But so often it is what lies just below the surface that pushes me to my keyboard during sixth period to attempt to get out at least a little of the millions of tiny things that have gone wrong today. Nearly all of them go back to our wonderful office. And each of them alone is enough to send me to get a job at Walmart, or to pack up everything I own and head back to the comforts of home to await the next round of grad school applications. I feel underappreciated and alone. I feel that every tiny piece of good I have done is so quickly overshadowed by mismanagement and beauracracy that it would have all been better to have not done the good thing in the first place.
I had to write up six students this morning for copying, distributing, and attempting to sell answers to a test in another class. I watched the kids do it, knowing the whole time that I was going to write them up and that hopefully they would get in trouble for their actions. I did write them up. I told Mr. Hollins I had written them up. He proceeded to thank me for the wonderful job that I am doing, in much the same way that he always does, bringing a small bit of reliable happiness into my work environment. And a few minutes ago, one of the students I had written up came in to tell me that the school secretary, in all of her infinite wisdom, had informed her that she had been written up, and told her that I had no proof and that she wouldn't be getting in trouble. I also had to send two students to the office because they claimed to have excused absences for yesterday. They spent the entire period in the office only to come back with unexcused absences (for YESTERDAY, not to mention the class time they missed because I was stupid enough to send them to the office.)
I am useless here. I am fighting daily battles in futility. I am wasting every second of every day in a job that is sure to be undermined the second I have to pass a single thing along to another employee of this school.
I have no doubt that I will cry my way home this afternoon, or that I will get up in the morning tomorrow and carry on with the hard work of being overlooked and under apprecaited. Maybe things are much worse because Casey isn't here today. Or maybe things are much worse because I truly am realizing that I cannot be employed by an organization that so consistently ignores truth in favor of what is easy.
Heather at 11:38 AM
