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WARNING: This post is not a fun read.  I mostly bitch.  I apologize in advance.

It frustrates me.  No, it’s insulting, when you ask questions – because don’t they always say it’s better to ask??? – and you get a smart ass comment in reply.  It’s especially insulting when it’s a supervisor who does it.  And if you took the time to reply to the emails you received, then you won’t get an “annoying” second request for information a week later.  Guess what?  We’re all busy.  And we’re all supposed to be professionals.  Act like it.

Just another day at my new job.  This new job has been bittersweet.  I can’t believe that I sometimes feel just as frustrated here as I was at my old school.  The one upside has been that the source of my frustration hasn’t been the students.  Once again, however, I find it’s the adults who make me crazy.

The “game” these teacher’s force you to play is exhausting.  I miss the comraderie at my old school SOOOO much.  There we HAD to work together and support each other.  To do otherwise was suicide.  Your fellow teachers were your life line.  Your support.  Your rock.  Here, they gossip and spend a inordinate amount of time defending their egos.  Maybe it’s only my department — which is beyond dysfunctional it seems.  My department head doesn’t remember a thing you ask.  Never follows through.  And he has 10x the authority that my old (and AMAZING) department head has at my old school.

My neighbor, who was once so helpful, did much to cause me stress last week, by filling my head with insecurities.  She told me not to ask the old teacher of my subject questions b/c she would tell my Assistant Principal that I didn’t know what I was doing.  And of course when I did anyway, Mrs. P – the old teacher (see last post) – made me feel just that way.

I won’t lie, this course, AP Macro, has been a real challenge.  Unfortunately, I believe I made it harder than it had to be, but that’s because I included some Microecon in the last unit.  I really started to feel as though I bit off more than I could chew.  Feelings of inadequacy gripped me all last week and I just felt dumb for taking on this challenge.

Stepping back — and after spending the entire weekend getting caught up and planning for the week ahead — allowed me to do some more practical reflection.  I realize that I was hired for this position primarily b/c I have demonstrated an incredible work ethic — not my towering intellect necessarily.  I take on challenges and work to succeed.  I like to think that this is what my principal saw in me and still sees in me.

I’ve decided to leave my neighbor alone — as much as I can.  While she can be helpful, as I found out last week, she is caught up BIG time in this game of egos.  She – if not the entire department – has a us against them attitude and I can’t work in that kind of environment.  I don’t need it and I won’t invite it into my work environment if I can help it.

Regardless of how I feel about the staff — which at this point the best I can say is that I feel indifferent — I am amazed daily by my students.  I have piqued the interest of several of my students to collaborate with me on an ESD project.  I’m having a meeting after school on Thursday.  I can tell that they are interested in the places that I have been and enjoy my stories when I have time to tell them.  They are also very patient with me when I don’t know an answer to a question — something that used to terrify me.  I think they respect you more when you say you’re not sure but will get back to them with an answer.  (And I always do.)

Another big, big stressor lately has been financial issues.  If you’re not a teacher, please, please work to increase the pay of teachers.  Unless you know a teacher, you’re not likely to honestly have a clue about the hours of work we put into our jobs.  The early dismissal on Mondays does NOTHING for getting me caught up.  The pay cut I took to move here compounded with their crazy “pay you master’s pay stipend at the end of the year” payroll scheme here is killing me. I seriously thought about getting another job, but I have NO FREE TIME for a second job.  Another big difference here is that teachers can get paid for tutoring after school, but it’s heavily regulated.  Teachers are paid via title I funds.  (This blew my mind when I first heard it — esp when I think about the HOURS of FREE tutoring I was REQUIRED to provide at my old school.)  But I don’t have any free time to tutor at the moment.  I’m already at school until late in the evening as it is.

But it’s not all bad.  I still get great satisfaction from the actual teaching I do.  I also enjoy the fact that I can always step outside and sit by the pool to decompress from the stress.