My average class shouts and bullies. Insult after insult piercing the air as if shish-kabobed on a javelin. Never ending. (And not even creative. Couldn't they at least call each other paramecium? That, at least, would be an intelligent insult.)
Their cruelty tires me.
We do class bonding activities, work together, try to say "yes, I can" more often. We have a "shout out box" and a laminated poster they can write happy messages on. The room drips with color and creativity and positivity, and yet... they aren't getting the message. What is it that makes them so mean? I'm not being mean.
In my partner teacher's class, one special education student shouts to another "YOU FUCKING RETARD!"
What is this? Who allows these children to speak this way to each other? We write them up if its bad enough, and the principal (who refers to herself as my "friend." Gag me.) ignores the disciplinary request. But only if its written up by my partner. If I do it, then maybe, just maybe, something will get done.
Every day, I walk in hoping that I will have a good day. Slap that smile on my face. Every day I leave feeling like a total failure. I think if only I just work a little more tonight... things will get better.
If only I create one more project, then they'll get it. One more power point, then they'll see. One more try, another go. More money spent, less z's kept.
I know I'm not alone in feeling like this, which should make me feel less miserable, but it doesn't. Morale is sinking. Something is slinking, squeezing the life out of the school. I feels like I'm stuck in a pool of quicksand rimmed by a hundred-pound anaconda. There's this terrible fear, this cloud of stench in the air, this feeling. Something bad is going to happen.
Stress, stress, stress. I try to breathe through it all, try to take moments for myself, afternoons that I devote to writing, drawing, walking, petting the cat.
And then? Disaster. Last Tuesday, I found myself shrieking on the floor of the teacher's restroom. There was no Miss J. No personality. No me in that chrysalis, face sweating, forehead puckering, convulsing on the floor (the joys of being female).
Pure, unbridled pain. Toe-curling, hair-pulling, teeth-clenching pain. The type of pain where you frantically think I might lose control of my bowels and then, as you howl in agony, all you can do is pray that you do not. Most embarassment fades when pain is strong, but dignity can still be wounded, even when pain's at its worst.
The paramedics (stone faced, like hup-two soldiers, man-made emotionless robots of their job's design) took me away. After an ambulance ride (the man in the backseat looked past me, bored, as tears streamed down my face) and 45 minutes of total agony in the hospital (IV, catheter, blood leeched from my veins) morphine in all its lovliness dripped into me, and finally my screaming stopped. I fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep.
That night?
Exhausted.
I slept on and off until 8:30 pm, when I finally hit the sack.
I went back to work the next day.
The kids treated me like shit.
Why am I killing myself for you?
Why am I working so damn hard?
Because, awful as they can be... I still care about them, their futures.
And I don't know how to stop.
1 comment:
Oh my gosh jerlinga, what happened? are you ok? Please know that you are doing something, something is better than nothing. But if that something is making you feel the way your words describe....jerlinga you have to look after yourself!!
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