Movin' On Up...(and away from the east side)

I'm not going to lie. Things have been stressful lately. Monday through Friday I masquerade as a weary and battered shuttlecock in a surreal game of academic badminton played between the Reich Chancellery (school district) and many clueless and some crackhead parents who vie for control of everything I --not to mention my esteemed colleagues-- say and do.

Because they fear a lawsuit, downtown authorities want us to handle everything from extreme attendance issues (One young girl has been absent for two months and has not been enrolled anywhere else) to students with 31 zeros (also a true story) at the campus level while ghetto parents throw a clot every time you correct them or their children for anything. Each party desires miraculous academic results without suffering any personal loss of energy on their own part all the while bearing no responsibility for the failure that is almost certainly due to the refusal of the former entity (district) to recognize the essential role of the latter (parents) as the creators and would-be facilitators of what we in education refer to as the formative years. 

Truthfully, it's like being handed 77 5th graders who have been raised on a steady diet of cigarettes, Flaming Hot Cheetos and Mountain Dew and then being critically evaluated on whether or most of them can--after a scant eight months-- qualify for the Olympic trials.

 I'm done.

Seacrest out, my friends. Marva Collins has left the building. I'm waving the white flag of surrender and throwing in the proverbial towel. I'm cashing in my chips.  I'm taking my vintage vinyl copy of Lulu singing "To Sir, With Love" and breaking it in half over my knee. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that it can't be done by me. Here. Now.

 Defecting along with me are two upper grade colleagues. Another two have requested transfers but have thus far been unable to find positions elsewhere. The AP is resigning from education altogether. So...it's not just me, just in case you were wondering.

Next year I'll be teaching 8th grade English Literature far away from the Quick Cash kiosks and Section 8 housing that surround my present educational establishment. My new job is closer to home and it's with an age group that--when the bell rings--is capable of walking to lunch, rather than requiring me to slice off part of my own meager mealtime to ferry them there and back to the classroom. I've taught 8th grade before and I've raised 8th graders. Of course, you could say that I've raised 5th graders too and you'd be right, but the ones who grew up in my house knew their own address and phone number and that Clown College and Hair College should never be mistaken for higher education. It had to be said.

To complicate matters, I've spent almost a month of post-work afternoons or evenings seeing my father in the hospital. ER first trip, post-op, ER second trip, post-op, cardiac telemetry, two weeks of a propofol-induced coma in the ICU, and back to cardiac telemetry before....finally...a two week stint in a physical rehab hospital where he is learning to walk again. All the while waiting for good news from a better school and better chances for good news about my dad. News that would suggest that we can resume planning his 80th birthday party again.

My head aches from the semi-permenent grimace I wear and my voice is strident and pedantic. I resemble Nancy Grace minus the bad hair and handcuff necklace she word during the Jodi Arias trial. There has been a notable increase in my wine consumption of late and on more than one occasion I've been tempted to check myself into a remote mountain top ashram under the name "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" and let robed monks bring me tea and invoke the Grand Silence.

Instead, I'm going to take a multi-vitamin, drink a big tumbler of ice water, do a handstand, smile at the calendar which shows the remaining eight days of school and rejoice in a second chance to experience joy in my chosen profession.

Happy Memorial Day, y'all.