Decision Day

Tomorrow I'm going to tell my boss, who has just recovered from salmonella poisoning, that I'm not coming back after Christmas. I feel good about it. Today in staff meeting he handed out a story of a student teacher working in an underprivileged, difficult classroom of third graders with behavior problems. Of course, she worked hard and stuck with them and transformed the classroom. When I hear these stories, I want to stay. I am an incurable idealist and would love to transform the world one classroom at a time, but not here.

Last night I went to a birthday party of one of my students. They live in a gated house in a gated community. The students there were the "Pinkles" (my little snotty girl-gang) and a whole lot of boys (most of my obnoxious problem ones). As soon as I walked in with my Spanish co-teacher and her family, one of the boys started snorting, like he likes to do in class. Then one of the girls asked me for a pony, another joke which the group of boys likes to repeat. I smiled at them and ignored their pleas for attention. While I was eating a group of boys ran up to me and asked to see my scar. I refused. It all ended up all right in the end. Sylvia's mom started dancing in a silly mom way and soon we were all doing a Mexican line dance. I was happy to slip out shortly after.

What actually bothered me the most was the fact that all the kids left their plates, which then blew off the table on to the grass. After picking up one in my area, as is my instinct, I stopped. No one else even noticed, let alone thought about picking them up. They have people that do that for them. If I were caught picking them up, I think it would just be embarassing for me and the family. The teacher doing the job of a servant. But that's how I was raised, to be a servant, to do the right thing. Most of my students are raised to believe that the dirty jobs are someone else's jobs. The mess they make is not their own to clean up.

So, I'm going to leave. I'm leaving because this is not how I want to live, and I'm getting old. I don't want to waste time on things that don't work. So for my last month, I will do my best to be kind to my students and yell less and lead with a better example. But mostly I want to shove them off their little ponies.