How long can this last?

This is a rough first week.

My students are beautiful and great. Of course, some of them are challenging, but that's the point of this job and I love it.

The adults, however, are slowly (or quickly, in some cases) driving me insane. Without going into too many specifics (I'm a weird combination of egotistical and paranoid enough to suspect that I have readers at my school -- spies are everywhere!) I can just say that I am tired of the power plays, illogical decisions, and general lack of spiny-ness of my administrators. This school is a ball of dysfunction, and the most dysfunctional are at the helm!

I'm growing weary, ladies and gentlemen. And it's only the third day. Either they're going to have to change, or I'm going to explode in a blaze of fury (and by that I mean be passive aggressive for the rest of the year and then transfer to some other dysfunctional DC school where I like the administration). Only time will tell.

Are you ready?

This precious weekend is the only thing standing between us and a brand new school year -- and I do not feel ready quite yet. But the good news is that I don't feel ready for very good reasons.

In previous years, my class has been my class and everyone else could do whatever they wanted. We didn't really collaborate, and no other adults ever came in my room. So I knew that if I wanted to wait to lesson plan until the night (or hour) before, I could. If I wanted to rethink my unit plan half-way through, I could. If I wanted to totally change the way some system in my class works, I could. This year, the Algebra teachers are all working together, I have two special education co-teachers, and a student teacher intern. All of this is great -- it will mean tons of support, collaboration, and help for the kids -- but it means I have to get my stuff done early, get buy-in and feedback, and really step up my game. In short, I have to learn to play well with others. And I am nowhere near ready for that yet.

That lack of readiness aside, I'm happy with the way things are coming together. I know I'm generally a negative cynical old coot, but I'm feeling quite positive about this year. We'll see how long that lasts.

First day back

Today was the first day of teacher professional development at my school. They spelled our school name wrong on the board.

This does not bode well.