Monday blues

It's been that kind of week so far at school (oh, is it still Monday?) where I've been thinking about composing a letter to the editor entitled, "Why I Left Education After 10 Years."

Half of my students are failing, even with the "fluff" grades I give them because according to school dictate, I'm not supposed to give anyone a zero. Technically, I'm not really supposed to fail anyone, but if they have only done half of their work and failed the two quizzes I gave them, what other grade can they have other than an F?  Oh, yeah, I could change my grading scale and give them an I for incomplete...

I show inspiration videos everyday as part of their class starter. I dressed them all up in graduation gear, took their pictures, and posted the pictures on my bulletin board. I keep positive and give them pep talks about graduation is worth all the hard stuff now. I give them waaaaaay too much time to get assignments done to accommodate everyone who needs extra time. I give them manipulatives to review their vocabulary words with. I create Prezi Presentations for their notes.

Kids talk through my videos. My bulletin board has now been half taken down as kids have pulled pictures down and now it just looks stupid. During my pep talks, students tell me it's not worth my time or caring since most kids don't really care. Only half of my students get their work done and turn it in and then they complain about how I don't give them enough time (as if 50 minutes for 20 sentences to identify wasn't enough time). My vocabulary words get stolen, lost and torn every time we pull them out-- or kids complain about having to move around definitions to match their words. Kids don't write down their notes, even when they are in a cool presentation (with hidden words they have to try to find).

I was telling the hubby tonight that I seriously don't know what else to do. There are so many concepts in the Common Core I still need to cover but it takes forever to just cover one thing and since we're on block schedule and I only see my kids every other day, it feels impossible.

side note: They moved the copy machine to the front office from its former house in the teacher work room in the library. They locked up the Rizo machine (the really fast copier) in some back room of the library that we can't get to. They hid the paper so now we have to ask the secretary if we need more paper. We have copy limits and a counter for every single copy we make. Every Friday we get "in trouble" by the administration for how many copies we're making.

Anymore I feel like we're stuck in some terrible experiment to see just how much insanity teachers can take before they quit. Sometimes I think the principal does it all on purpose to weed some of us out so he can hire people he really wants to work with.