Difficult Times

What do we do when there are tough times? Hopefully we pick up the pieces and put them together as best we can. There have been some difficult times around here recently, both in my personal life and in my professional life. I have seen people (both adults and students) arrested, I have heard of DHS coming to take students away from parents for abuse, I have seen a colleague put on suspension for something they said to a parent (which by the way made the news), and then there are my students' test scores. What in the world is going on around here? It seems as if everything is going to "hell in a handbasket"! I remarked to someone the other day that the "world seems to have been turned upside down". There are science teachers leaving (both the school and the profession) in what seems like droves to me.  I hate change!  It's disturbing to someone like me who, thrives on things being the same everyday. What will we do if we have to train both new teachers and new administrators next year?

I'm sure things will be okay, but the process stinks. Actually, it's not the process so much as the THINKING about the process. Maybe that's what is so disturbing to me, the thought of change, not the change itself. When change is happening, its really not that bad. I just don't like the prospect of the whole thing.

So, when you think about us here in the trenches of education, keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We have to deal with students who don't want to learn, students who don't even want to be productive members of society, parents who think we are the "bad guys", parents who don't keep track of where their kids are and then blame us when we don't know where they are, legislators who want to let any ole' body teach (deregulation, which is a good thing in moderation), and just trying to keep students interested in the knowledge we are trying to pass on to them. I know, it sounds like I'm crying about my chosen profession. I came into this job with my eyes fully open, but that doesn't make it easier. It just hopefully means I will be smarter in the decisions I make.

A teacher's prayer:

Lord grant me:

• the power not to act on the impulse to pound that unruly kid


• the wisdom to know what to say to that wacko parent who thinks I should know where their child is after the school bell has rung


• the ability to maintain my composure when I feel I am being wronged either by a parent, student, or administrator


• and the courage to stand up for myself, my students, my fellow faculty, and my administrators (especially when I have to stand up TO a student, another faculty member, or an administrator)


• Amen