It takes a village.

Andrew has been playing all summer with the girl who lives next door.  She is a year older than  him.  She has an older brother (let's say 19 or 20) who appears to do nothing all day and dropped out of high school.  Mom works in the medical field and is a screamer and a thrower of objects.  We share our living room walls and I can hear everything. 

I like the girl.  She and Andrew play well together; he's happy when she is here.  He's been bugging me for a sibling, which is not going to happen, so as many play dates he can have, the better. However, I'm wondering if her mom isn't dumping her here at my house.  As I write this, she is plunking away at my piano.  This is her second visit to my house today.  The first happened around 4:30, just before dinner. She was still here as I pulled dinner out of the oven at 5:45.  I could have invited her to dinner.  Instead, I said that I was sure that her mom wanted her home for dinner. The girl, H., said that she had already eaten dinner. Hmmm.  I sent her home. Then, I second guessed myself.  

I teach kids whose homes are in the type of chaos as H.'s. I know they need all the caring adults they can get.  I know that she's a bit lonely as she and Andrew are the only kids their age on the block. Still, I don't want to train her mother into thinking that I am going to feed her kid.  Kindness, yes. Doormat, no.

Class anxiety

I am not feeling anxious about the classes I am teaching.  As a matter of fact, I am, at this moment, feeling like a pretty competent teacher.  Instead, the class to which I am referring is socio-economic class.  Based on my income, I am  middle class.  I was born middle class, though I might not die middle class.  That's too morbid to muse on a Sunday morning, so let's not.

Thanks to the draconian educational policies that currently exist, I am not securely middle class.  Should I lose my job, who knows what I will do. I need, therefore, to try to put aside some money, and come up with some sort of investment plan.  I think I can do all of that and still travel.  This post isn't about any of that.

I have both spinal arthritis and spinal osteoporosis.  On most days, I don't suffer from too much pain.  A little here, a little there - nothing the heating pad can't handle.  I am, however, finding it more and more difficult to complete a handful of household cleaning tasks without being incapacitated for 24 hours. I know this going into the cleaning, thus I avoid these tasks for slightly longer than I should.  Eww. 

I hate letting things get dirty and I hate pain, so I have fully come to the realization that I need to hire someone to do clean five things in my house: the kitchen floor, the bathroom floors (one full bath and one w.c), both the toilets (the bases, not the bowls), and the tub. 

My problem is that I don't want to hire someone to essentially clean up my shit.  In high school, I cleaned two houses and did not enjoy the experiences.  I have read Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, I know that many cleaning companies treat their employees like dirt.  The injury rate is high for these women. And yet, I am aware that sometimes any job is better than no job.  I even know that I cannot physically handle cleaning these areas.  None of that seems to mitigate the guilt that I am feeling as I am about to look for someone to hire. I am feeling a kind of middle class guilt about hiring someone who has slipped to, what is essentially, the bottom of the food chain. To be honest, I'm not so sure that I won't slip that far myself.

This is first world problem that I am sure will be mocked by someone, somewhere. I can't help that.  I just hope that I am not the only person who has ever felt this way.

Trying to breathe

I always have butterflies before the first day of school.  I mark that as a good sign, that I still care after 16 years in the profession. Part of me sees significant similarities between being a teacher and a performer.  We both have audiences, with whom we interact, and we both present a body of information: be it American Literature, songs, or a script. Like a performer, I take great care in my presentation.  I know, however, that my presentation is supposed to stick with the audience, and help them attain skills that they will be able to use later.  For a school like mine, the ability to use those skills on tests in the spring has become a life and death matter.

I've talked about testing before, so I won't bore you with a rehash of how it works (though if you don't know, please comment and ask me).  If you read this blog on a fairly regular basis, you'll have a basic understanding of my school's demographics: high poverty, high percentage of non-English speakers or English as a second language.  Numbers like that don't bode well for standardized tests.  My students read too slowly to do well on a timed test.  They lack the cultural background to handle the reading passages on the ACT (part of our state's testing mandate). 

Anyway, if schools perform poorly on those tests for a long enough time, they will fall to the bottom of the state rankings and then all hell breaks loose.  If a school is in the bottom five percent, it becomes a "Priority School."  Yay us!!! We're a "Priority School." This does not mean that the state will pour extra resources into much needed areas. Nope, it means that we enter the year with the sword of Damocles dangling overhead. 

A weasel...I mean monitor from the state will be on-site.   I will have to not use the word weasel when addressing this person. We, as a staff will have to decide on one of four options, if we do not meet, as yet unstated, goals: a. closure, b. restart as a charter, c. turnaround (fire principal and 50 percent of staff), or d. transformation.

That is all I know.  We have no more details than that. 

I must try to stay positive, but I also cannot be oblivious.  The state will likely set unattainable (without cheating) goals.  I must not only teach my ass off, but I must really forge ahead on finding something else for me to do.  I must try to stay calm and not stress eat.  I must keep my son as my number one priority and not let him know the churning that is eating away at my insides. I'd really like to find a date or two. Who knows if there will be time for any fun?

Anyone want to hire one slightly used teacher?