So.

You're correct to guess that I'm not teaching next year. If you have to ask why, you haven't been reading carefully (and if all you've done is read this site, I'm sorry to say you don't know the half of it). Don't tell me to get a new school, or a new district, or a new attitude. I want a job where you can go home at the end of the day and relax, and I don't want "the end of the day" to be 13 hours after the beginning of the day.

However, people have asked what I'm doing next, not just what I'm *not* doing next.

I've got a summer job I'm excited about, tutoring for low pay at a national nonprofit. This is what I used to do for a living, while tutoring rich kids on the side to make it a living wage. Maybe I'll stick with that.

My nonprofit friends who've moved up to leadership roles seem to enjoy themselves. Maybe I'll do that.

I was a bit of a hotshot writer in the last good economy, so I guess I could always combine my two careers and work in educational publishing. Maybe I'll do that.

Maybe I'll tend bar, maybe the economy will pick up and new choices will present themselves, maybe something interesting will fall into my lap.

Me, I'll be just fine.

Shrimp ceviche

Shrimp ceviche
Originally uploaded by Jen and Rick

"School's out for summer. School's out forever."

Plus, Muppets.

Were you expecting U2, or maybe Metallica? One bourbon, one scotch, one beer? Nope. We're into HOURS now, baby.

"Twenty- twenty- twenty- four hours to go..."

"It takes TWO to make a thing go right

Not the original studio recording -- again, thanks to the copyright police, I assume -- but it's nice to see Rob Base still jumping around live in 2008. Trivia: I do an accurate (if very white) karaoke version of this song after enough drinks.

It seems fitting that I should have two videos for "two" day. I didn't think I'd be taking reader suggestions, but when a friend mentioned "2 Legit 2 Quit" it was too good (and by that I mean "bad" to pass up). Even better, the video turns out to be an over-the-top 10-minute fiasco of '90s cheese-food. The music doesn't even start until 4:40. Historians of crap pop music, this is your lucky day:

Holy cow. I'm so glad I don't have to be here until July 31 because of a clerical error, like some classes in the Chino Unified School District. Of course, the article about this clusterfuck is all about how terrible this is for the students, who can either change their summer plans or do independent study, and not a single word about the impact on staff, who I assume have no such choice. I guess teachers and other school employees have no summer plans, right? We live only to teach, and we sleep under our desks at night to make more time for grading and planning.

Oh well. I couldn't find a video of Bob Marley's "THREE Little Birds" thanks to the YouTube copyright police, so instead enjoy a man with THREE buttocks:

This is one of the last rants I have in me this year...right?

I no longer subscribe to teacher blogs. I have them bookmarked and I visit when I think I can handle it. Having these posts pop up in Google Reader unannounced did nothing good for my mental health. Watching other teachers at safe schools do innovative things and enjoy their jobs while I treaded water (shark-infested water...with a broken leg) is not for the faint-of-heart.

Anyway, I read the teacher blogs today, and one of the big teacher bloggers has announced that he's leaving teaching after 5 years to pursue a PhD in education. This passage particularly struck me:
"The arc of a new teacher's development is short and bends in any number of directions. My own was filled from beginning to end with lucky coincidences, chance mentors who appeared and disappeared at the exact moment I most needed them, hobbies from my childhood which came back around to pay off huge dividends in my classroom. I can't explain any of it. I know I could do it all over again and arrive a completely different teacher."

I think he's being overly humble, but it's interesting to consider the many ways something as complicated as teaching can go. My arc, of course, bent...differently. I was as unlucky as this teacher was lucky, as ineffective as he was effective. People visit his blog and want to become teachers. People read my blog and come away hating the LA public schools, me, or both.

I'm not pointing fingers, but it occurred to me reading that passage that it might be important that I lacked mentorship and even any reasonable support system as a first- and second-year teacher.

I had two BTSA "support providers" in a row who did nothing. One ignored me the entire semester and the next one made it clear she had no time for me, either. She talked a lot about how overextended she was before telling me she'd "sign off on whatever." Hint taken.

At Crazy-Ass High, I was assigned a "buddy" across the hall who was always up for getting a drink after work but didn't actually help with anything teaching-related. Her friend the math department chair was also supposed to help me out, but the only advice she ever had was that I should have more sex. Both these women, towards the end of my time there, made it a habit to harass me first thing in the morning about whether I'd gotten any action lately. My administrators made it clear that I was a joke. (Classic quote: "To these kids, you're Malibu Barbie.") Counselors told me counseling wasn't their job. (?!?) And so on.

When I came to Lord of the Flies Middle School, everyone assumed I was a sub and left me alone. My second year, they assumed that because I wasn't a "new teacher" anymore, I had it together. I got conflicting orders from administrators (one says I'm too nice and another says I'm too mean, etc) and my direct supervisor gave me advice that was less offensive than sex tips but equally unhelpful and almost as insulting. (Earlier this year: go on medication. Just today: stop parting my hair down the middle because it brings attention to my nose. Yes, really.)

It wasn't all bad. The teacher across the hall, who my students treat with a lot more respect than they give me, has given me a hand with discipline this year. My department chair observed one of my classes and gave me some tips. The teacher next door accepts kids who are annoying me in exchange for me taking kids that are annoying him.

However. The dean who was supposed to give all 7th grade teachers discipline support this year decided early on that I wasn't worthy, and undermined me all year. I refer a student for threats or verbal abuse? I get a letter back about what a lame teacher I am, and the kid has a great time in the dean's office listening to him make fun of me. Any other teacher refers a student for similar infractions, and it's a different story. Just this week, one of my students was suspended for calling one of his teachers a "stupid bitch." I can't count how many times I've been called both these things this year, and worse. Eventually I just pretended I had no dean and sent the kids to my teacher buddy across the hall, who attempted to shame them for their nasty mouths but couldn't assign any real consequences.

I wasn't totally on my own, but it sure felt like it on most days. I wonder how much difference a mentor would have made. Or a school with an actual discipline policy, where, for instance, I didn't have to raise hell with five different authorities to get a kid who threatened my life in writing removed from my class. A school where the kid who threw her workbook at me can't then go complain to the principal about ME, and I'm never asked for my side of the story. Etc.

One of my teacher friends emailed me last night suggesting that I'm not a lame teacher, I'm just not at my best in these particular shitty circumstances. That may be true. I'm not sure I care to find out.

It's movie week at school. Everyone knows it. However, I don't approve of the teacher next door showing White Chicks to a bunch of 7th graders. I'm just sayin'. And now...

FOUR Day Creep

Sorry to those playing along at home...there's no way you were going to get this one. You're not going to guess tomorrow's, either :) Hint: it's not a song.

Okay, the majority of the people who took the poll -- though not all of them -- would guess that someone named "Jackie" is a woman. That's what I'd pick. I've known a lot of females named Jacqueline who went by "Jackie," but no males named Jack who did. I mean, Jackie Robinson and Jackie Wilson, but none I've actually met.

To make a long story as short as possible, I was out on Friday with a mixed-gender (and mixed race, and mixed generation) crowd. Someone was told that "Ryan, Craig, Jackie, and Rick" were celebrating their science PhDs, and she assumed they were all men. Dr. Jackie is in fact, Dr. Jacqueline. Since I see "Jackie" as a female name, I got more than a little pissed off that such an assumption is still being made in the year 2009 -- by a woman, no less. I think at minimum she should have asked whether they were all guys before assuming. Hell, she asked if any of them were single, so she clearly wasn't above asking for more info.

I may have overreacted, but I think the aphorism about "an ASS out of U and ME" still applies.

Time for a poll. If you know why I'm asking, please hold your comment until the follow-up post.