something totally different

I have definitely been an angry teacher this week. My 4th day of no caffeine. I don't know why I decided to give it up, the choice was completely random.

OH my poor poor babies. They have suffered my wrath. But then, they have been total sh**heads this week too. I chewed them out yesterday, saying how lazy, disrespectful, rude, and uncooperative they all are.

about my break:
I did have an amazing thanksgiving despite my initial concerns. Usually family get togethers are strained and tense. But I got to see my beautiful nephew for the first time, and see my brother and his wife since a year +.  and I also hung out for 4 hours with my best friends in the entire world and I already miss their faces.


back to teaching:
It is so hard being a "nice" teacher without losing respect. Some of my classes really click with me and we get along fine, even on bad days. But a couple of my classes, well, really just 4th period takes a lot of my energy out of me. Plus the whole Re-do thing really got to me today. I felt like I was back at waitressing in college where you have 1000000 million things going on at once. I was a bit frazzled to say the least.

something totally different:
I am re-reading Eat, Pray, Love for the second time, and I love it just as much as the first time I read it. She inspired me to take up meditation again. I used to meditate a lot more, nowadays, I rarely do even though I have the time. So I set my alarm clock 15 minutes earlier today, woke up and wrapped up in my blanket on my bed and meditated for 15 minutes. It was a little hard because I'm out of practice, but refreshing. I highly suggest you learn some meditation techniques if you don't know any. An "easy" mantra is "Ham, So" or "so, hum" the ham is your in breath, the so is your out breath. it means I am that, that I am

simple and encompassing at the same time.


that's all!

and I have another dinner date with the girls this week! I'm baking something, I just don't know what yet. I bought pumpkin, chocolate chips and molasses. I know that with that combo, I can make anything delicious. I'm excited!

-tha angry teacher (for real)

Anger Isn't Productive

Yesterday I had a rough day.

I was placed in the shoes of my students by some overbearing coworkers.

This is how the situation went down…

We have a thing called Re-Do at our school. I will have to do a whole separate post or two on that topic…well I’m innocently eating my lunch- homemade chili-and the Redo aid (she’s not even a teacher) storms into the lounge with her hands thrown up(seriously) and asks pretty rudely, “So are you going to send any work [for your students]??”

I guilty jump out of my chair and mutter an apologetic “Oh, yes!” and rush to my classroom to retrieve the work for my students.

I say a prayer ‘cause I am pretty pissed at this lady for being such a bitch to me…unfortunately, the prayer didn’t change my heart like it should have and I walked into the Library, shoot the woman a death glance, and hand the papers out to my kids. I did apologize to the other woman who runs the Redo, but when I walked out of the Library, Bitch walked past me and I completely ignored her.

I felt exactly, exactly like a small child who was chastised by mommy and was now sulking and giving mommy an attitude.

So wrong.

Second incident (same day, two hours later): The counselor calls me up asking for some scantrons that I sent down LAST THURSDAY because I wanted them in on time, actually a little bit early.

“Ms. Angryteacher, you are our holdout, you are the only one we haven’t received the scantrons from.”

I replied with the aforementioned statement but added, “I did send them down to your box with a trustworthy student.”

She paused, “Maybe the kid thought the other counselor’s box, let me go check.” Five minutes later lo and behold, that’s exactly what my “trustworthy” students had done.

Counselor’s parting words over the telephone, a frazzled and admonishing, “Don’t ever send a child down with completed scantrons!!” Click.

Again! I’m getting in trouble again!! Ahh, I felt like a naughty child being yelled at by their teacher! I almost cried (okay, maybe I’m PMS too..)

Later when I saw her, I was abrupt and had a bad attitude. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the receiving side of a lecture; I’m usually the one giving lectures nowdays.

Lesson learned: Yeah, we are human, and we are going to be frustrated with other people, especially kids who are rude, stupid, stubborn, troublemakers, tardy, etc. but yelling or even worse, being condescending doesn’t help. Our natural reaction is to become defensive and pissed off.

And you never know when a kid just got in trouble in  another teacher’s class. What happens when you also get on to them about something, even if it’s very important? Most likely, the kid will be angrier than normal and resent you for days/weeks/ months to come.

What your mouths is all I’m trying to say.

-thaangryteacher