some lights seem eternal
in this springtime of hope

I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty

February 08, 2005
In an effort to save some money, our school saves the free teacher guides publishers send before buying a set of textbooks, when the people who are tasked to select a book have made their choice they do not order the teacher�s guide and just use the free copy sent by the publisher � this is a problem because they review copy and the teacher�s guide that goes with the textbooks you buy have a plethora of bat and ball changes that cause a teacher grief during the day. One of my books, sadly it is the Math book, is so out of sync with the student books that I no longer use the teacher�s guide. Once a week a student and I will go around about what the book does or does not say, I usually start this conversation with, �my book is different than yours�� but some of my boys are more impetuous than other boys, and this moves to incredulous and then impertinent.

My personal life is something that is left outside, completely outside, my classroom. However, the students are interested to know the particulars of my life. When I was their age I would have wondered many of the same things myself, and even asked them, but I still do not tell them. I have a general rule that it is none of their business and if I would not post it on the internet, why would I tell them? I am annoyed at a coworker for telling my class the answers, to the best of her knowledge, to their questions. Not only did she have no business doing that but she got a great deal of the information wrong.

I hunted her down during my break, thanked her for being so helpful in my class�s quest for knowledge, getting that information wrong and creating chaos in my classroom, as well as offering to tell her the complete and accurate information the next time she felt the need to share personal and inappropriate information with my students.

I did: control the tone of my voice and was polite
I did not: say, �bitch,� or �bitch, please!� or any other foul words

Teaching is my job, it eats up a great deal of life but it is not my life and work is never where I look for personal relationships. Because I do not have personal relationships with my co-workers, it is assumed that I do not have any and indeed, for all of the things I do not share they have created their own fiction around. If they find this interesting, so be it.


Today I tutored the brother and sister in my class after school and took them to Mc Donald�s on the way home because he is eleven and therefore ready to eat and I was ready to gnaw on my arm, the girl could have cared less about eating. While at Mc Donald�s I ate my salad with grilled chicken while they ate Mighty Kid�s Meals, which are fortified with more saturated fats than your garden-variety kid�s meal.

The boy had six �chicken� mc nuggets and a small fry, three each of the tiny cups of: ketchup, barbeque, and sweat & sour sauces. He consumed all it, to including drinking a ketchup. This is the last time I will be eating Mc Donald�s with him, not because I was disgusted but because I was jealous. However, at one point I realized how late it was and that we needed to move along so I said, �Boy, back to work!� because I say that him all day long. Some mentally handicapped person (who works at the Mc Donald�s and stared at us the whole time, creepy) and Boy said to him, �he says that to me all day long, he is just used to it.�

The girl used my camera phone to take pictures of the people in the �restaurant� but did not pretend to be discreet about it.

I cannot complain about the behavior of these children at Mc Donald�s, the Mc Donald�s in my college town currently lacks at least six napkin dispensers, Braille and picture menus � I am not listing it all, if it was not nailed down Amy, Gail or I stole it �because.� We have no idea to this day what Gail was doing with all those napkins, although Kevin conjectured that she rolled her own tampons. Amy rolled an Omni, or we would have given Nicole and Matt the Golden Arches for their wedding gift.

If you think stealing from McDonalds is lame, consider that my roommate reported us to the police for it.

After this we went to Barnes and Noble so they could pick out a book for their birthday this weekend � something I give every child � and I picked out some other books and things for my classroom and the girl at the counter challenged that they were for school. I have to admit that the American Girls coloring book and division flashcards were for me but the books about Greek Mythology, Dick and Jane in Yiddish and the Economist were clearly for the third grade girls. I keep forgetting that the gigantic ten percent that I am given comes out of the cashier�s paycheck. Luckily Boy of Emo Glasses was there to ring me up instead.

Why do people think I am out to cheat them? One of the few (and far between) advantages of being a teacher is that discount and I am loath to give it up. And, why would I make up being a teacher to save $0.30 on a coloring book?

7:48 PM :: 5 comments so far ::
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