Holiday Highlights

Number of days of school left before Christmas break—one and three fifths (Friday is a 60% day)
Number of students who took an exam today—nineteen (I had a lot of absences)
Number of nineteen students who passed—six (grades ranged from an 80 to a 34)
Number of days I spent going over the exact test questions—three
Number of students that have yet to take their tests—forty-four
Number of students who received failing grades of their progress reports—50 (of 63)
Number of students who scored above a 70% on their 6th grade MCT—three
Number of students my school expects me to prepare to pass the 7th grade MCT—63
Number of school districts I will be applying to over Christmas break—12
Number of months before this school year is over—five and a half
Number of students who have thanked me—six
Number of things thrown at me this semester—too many to count (calculator, pencils, erasers, paper wads)
Number of times I have been shoved—twice
Number of times I have been scratched—once
Number of times I have been called names including racial slurs—too many to count
Number of times I have questioned what I am doing—a billion
Number of days of school left before Christmas break—one and three fifths (Friday is a 60% day)

I know that it has been a long time since I have blogged, but I have discovered that the only real way to cope is to just not think about school unless I am there (and even then sometimes it helps to try and think about something or somewhere else).
I have been thinking a lot about my future lately and the future of my students. I am definitely not going to be at my school next year and I am not going to feel guilty about it. I love my students, but unless they fail the seventh grade I wouldn’t be responsible for teaching them again next year anyway. I do not like my principal and chances are she will still be there next year. I am tired of driving 45 minutes to job that, for the most part, I do not like and then having to drive another 45 minutes just to get home to my favorite person in the world. So, I have decided to ignore the impossible (or implausible) and focus on the few things I know I can do that will help my students the most. I am still trying to narrow the areas they need help in to a few that I can focus on the next two semesters. I am really curious to see how the MCT scores turn out this year and whether or not our school is taken over by the state. I guess I will have to read about it in the papers, because I definitely won’t be there to find out.
Most people seem to really enjoy going to class on the weekends and being around all of the other Teacher Corps people. I, however, seem get even more depressed on weekends when we have classes. My grades are good, at least that is something to be proud of, but it is hard not to think about school when everyone is talking about it. It is hard to be happy with my lot in life and not be envious when everyone is talking about how things are at their school. It is even worse when people are complaining about something at their school, like the copying machine being broke, when my school doesn’t even have a copy machine!
Now you see why I have not been blogging and why I have been avoiding TC people. No I am not depressed. I love life. I just have to focus on the things that I love in life (and beyond) and remember that as both of my fathers tell me “this too will pass”! Christmas is just around the corner and I couldn’t be happier. The week I had off for Thanksgiving Break felt like the best week of my life. I can only imagine how wonderful two weeks will feel. There is so much I want to do. There are so many books that I want to read. There is so much paper work to complete. There is an L-SAT to study for. There is a teaching position closer to Mom and Dad to try and find for next year. There is cooking and cleaning and Christmas shopping to do. There are Christmas cards to write and cookies to bake for James’s co-workers. Oh, but it never before sounded like so much fun!