Isolation

This year has been the most difficult that I have had to date. Most of it is the isolation.

I have friends - more outside my department than inside but that has been true for years. I just never get a chance to see and talk with them.

We have a schedule that actively discourages the teachers from communicating - I do not think it is an accident.

We have an administration that couldn't plan an escape from a paper bag. And couldn't communicate either their situation or their desire for help.

Add - that we have been a needs improvement school long enough that administrators (rather than seeing their own lack of planning and communication) think the solution is to target and get rid of teachers.

In a situation like that, it is better to be middle of the road with middle of the road classes and keep your head down.

If you chose the harder to teach, harder to pass students, their lack of progress must be due to your ineptitude not the fact that the kid they just assigned to your class (whom you have never met) is 18 with 6 credits. (You need 23 to graduate.) And the kid is not atypical.

So if you gear your lesson to help them pick up what they are missing as well as learn new - well, you are not expecting RIGOR and you are not being a proficient teacher.

And that is isolating as well.

I will find another position. My students will get the best that I can give them.

And the administration will be as clueless next year without me as they are this year.