Frustration

I don't believe anyone in my school reads my blog. Guess I will find out.

I co-teach in a class where they have hired a long term sub. Who has never taught. Who has had minimal math and education courses. Who hasn't even subbed that many times. And who thinks he knows everything. (And, by extension, I know nothing that could possibly be of value.

We'll call him Mortimer Snerd.

Mortimer also thinks other people can't possibly know more than he does. Like the head custodian who told him he couldn't let students eat in the room and that they had to pick up after themselves.

Mortimer pushed hard the first week to get into the grade book. He doesn't try to teach or make lessons or find worksheets (we have no books) or make the tests (or study guides) or make copies or return work. But he keeps wanting to grade the tests.

Without an answer key, he has taken it upon himself to grade all of the tests the kids took last week. Ones I was holding on to until people finished taking it. Ones I had asked him not to grade because of what I learn grading it. But his vast experience of not teaching apparently outweighs my math education degree and years of teaching. And he must be related to someone, because the Highly Ineffective Administrators are backing him up.

This year cannot end soon enough.

You know this when you run the numbers how much you get if you retire today. Next month. After Christmas. The end of this year. Hold off another year. Or a year after that.

(Actually wrote this last year. It only got worse. I didn't retire. This year is very very different, better)

The culture of the school

A parent called a kid, during class, today to tell her that an uncle had died. The kid started wailing. The parent told the teacher to deal with it.