Wu Tang Is For The Kids

Day 24

Paperwork and meetings. I love being a teacher. I am still in awe sometimes that I wound up getting to have a career in a field I love and that I believe is noble and blah blah. I sincerely am.

But especially these days, I am starting to feel the pressure of the too much I have been hearing from pretty much all of the teachers there are. I’m generally able to just let things roll off me because, I think, I don’t have the stones to speak up about anything so I don’t really deal with how new stuff we have to do makes me feel. And paperwork and meetings have always been part of the job and I’ve never particularly liked either. But right now, especially literally right now just before break when I’m trying to cram so much in? Cram stuff in making sure it’s delivered surrounded by pillows and feathers to soften the blow to my kids so I don’t lose them to early break-itus? So much extra of so much I already don’t necessarily like. 

And I mostly belong to the camp of not complaining unless you have a solution. I understand venting for the sole purpose of blowing off steam, I’m not saying that. This is part of why I called my blog Idealiotic. My idealism borders on idiocy. I can admit it and am aware of it. It leaks into personal parts of my life too, unfortunately for those closest to me sometimes. We need order and bureaucracy and structures in the education system. And I get that if we did away with all meetings and paperwork it would basically be chaos. 

I just like teaching because I like teaching. Even on hard days and bad days I want to be with my students failing and succeeding as they fail and succeed too. Even though it’s part of the deal, when I have to stop and get a sub, or take time out from my planning for my teaching time with the kids outside of school in order to write pages of reflection for a summative, or give higher ups a deeper understanding of how I do the thing they hired and trust me to do it’s just annoying I guess. It all comes back to the kids, the meetings too. I’m not that idiotic, I can draw the lines between the purpose of all these non-teaching parts of teaching and making things best for students. But I guess today I just needed to vent. Not complaining. I’d do double if they said I had to in order to do this job. Sometimes it just feels like too much, on top of everything else. It’s not too much, it just feels like it. I’ll try and remember that. Being in front of my kids and away from paperwork and other adults should help.

“A heart that’s full up like a landfill

A job that slowly kills you

Bruises that won’t heal

You look so tired, unhappy

Bring down the government

They don’t, they don’t speak for us

I’ll take a quiet life

A handshake of carbon monoxide”