The First Day

Its nothing like the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir to get you in the mood for worship. I shall praise Him.

So today was like no other. We are pushing a new agenda. Accountability and Efficiency. Each of the teachers met with the principal, asst principal, TAP mentor, team mentor and the arbitrary math coach who was the time keeper of the group. So the gist of the meeting was to assess what went wrong last year because all of your class was not in the exceeds category on the ISAT. Like that was going to happen anyway, but none the less, we are held accountable and we are tasked to become more efficient with our time and resources. So in my twenty minute meeting with them today we assessed that I am inconsistent. Now isn't that a surprise. I hear it from you , at home and now at work. I must enforce my rules and rituals and stay consistent with the children or else it falls apart. When it falls apart it has been observed that I disengage from the situation and begin to do my own thing. I have low expectations for my students and I find that becomes the norm for me across the realm of my life away from school also. When my students push the rules or stop engaging in the rituals that I have set up I demand that they return in a over heated manner, but when they don't, I give up on them.

At home when I set up a schedule or suggest something to be done about a situation, if it isn't done then I disengage and forget about.

With you, I have low expectations about how you will even respond to my requests or what I think is important, mostly because you have never responded to any of them before, so I already know you are not going to respond to any of them now. I have low expectations about how you resppnd to me. You categorize me as needy and inconsistent and you are waiting until I change. I was waiting until you accepted me for who I am, where I am, and realize that I am aware of my faults as well, but neither of us seemed to have success in the situation, so we continued to struggle with this push me pull me situation. Neither winning and both unsatisfied. So today, with the supposed help of two, one for sure I know will help me, the other is full of talk in front of the principal and very little action, I embark on this journey to become more consistent and efficient. I hold myself accountable.

It cut to the bone, but after crying you continue to realize that the situation has not changed and something has to happen, either I leave this profession and say that it has gotten the best of me, or I become the change agent necessary to have a successful, productive and enjoyable year. Glory be to God. I know on Monday we will have a new group of students who will admit to being happy and sad that they are back. We will deal with the class structure and size. The parents and the police. I will make every effort to be a successful and productive and consistent teacher. I will walk with Jesus.