VENTING

I'm tired. So beware.

I can't fight for students who won't fight for themselves. I've conferenced with a student who is failing my class, given him opportunities to catch up on his missing work and he doesn't take it. I come up with alternative arrangements, and he doesn't do it. I email and call his parents to make them aware of his grade in my class. Nothing. Then he gets checked out of school today by someone else's parent for a birthday LUNCH for another student in my class who is failing. Right in the middle of class I have 5 students waltz in making all kinds of noise saying to this particular student, "Dude, let's go!" No note. No nothing. The student packs up his stuff, grins at me because he knows just how pissed off I am inside, and says, "See ya."

Don't we have ANY protocols at all here?

This student has failed my class for two terms and come begging to me the last day of term about how he can get his grades up. I told him last term I wouldn't do it again.

Can I stick to my word?

I have to show my students that it doesn't get to me. I think I'm way too emotional about that student.

Sad to say, but all of my students with "I"s at this moment just don't care. I've sat them down individually, set goals with them, written a million sticky notes that document what they've committed to do, and then nothing. Nothing.

How do you stop caring? How do you stop looking at your gradebook and feeling like a failure because half of your class is failing. Not because of a lack of skills but because of a lack of responsibility?

Oh middle school... What will I do with you?

I'm going home early today. I'm going home early and I'm leaving work here. I'm going to go find a happy place and leave all of this behind. Because tomorrow, I'm not caring (at least visibly to them). Maybe with some reverse psychology (aka: me looking like I don't care if they get that assignment in or not and me not asking about that book report I've reminded them about a million times), they'll get this stuff done.

What can I say. End of term is next week. We'll see who my deathbed repenters are.

And as always, there's that voice asking in the back of my head, "Is this me? Is there something I could have done better? Is this my failure, too?"

Yeah... I hate that voice...