Location: St. Augustine, FL
About Me: A high school Biology teacher's coping with rosacea while living in the interesting and sometimes insane world of public education.
January 29, 2005
I'm back!
Well, here I am on the new blog. It's been a rough couple of weeks. One of our Biology teachers decided over the Christmas holiday that she had experienced enough abuse and told the administrators (in a nice way) to 'stuff it'. She did not return and the county administrators decided that we had more than enough teachers to absorb the excess. So.... I got 12 new students from her classes. This gives me 33 kids in my regular level Bio class. The majority of these are kids who are reading on about a 7th grade level. They have no motivation except to socialize. Grades do not seem to matter to them. I've already called several parents and sent three to the office for insubordination. I will spare you all the details, but let it suffice to say that some of these new students should be poster children for birth control. I have been calm and collected on the outside but it's taken a toll on the rosacea. I'm currently bright pink and burning. I'm doing all I can for it now, but with the stress level so high it's been a losing battle. I'm also doing all I can in class to motivate these new students, but I could dance on the table in a tutu and some of them would not notice. I intend to stay consistant with the discipline and the rewards and hope things get better. Some days I can see improvement, but then there is a 'day from Hell' that makes me wonder why I didn't leave with the other teacher.
Posted by Ken Albin on January 29, 2005 09:45 PM