Okay, so I know that I've been kind of quiet the last few days.  In fact, 95% of my posts (if not 100% of them) have been to welcome newbies, and even those posts were very lackluster and succinct.  The truth is that I've been a little depressed.

I absolutely adore my new principal.  But like every person we ever encounter, she has flaws, and those flaws are hitting me a bit hard.

Let's go back a bit, shall we?

My principal believes in being involved with our students, our parents, and our staff.  She supports us all to the best of her ability, and she tries to keep in constant communication.  Due to this drive, she has given many of these students her cell phone number.  Well, apparently at least one of my students texted her and complained about my class.

Understandable.  My class is a difficult one and most students are not accustomed to such rigor and discipline.
Not understandable:  My principal assuming that because one or more students complain, I must not be an effective teacher.

My principal pulled me into her office a few weeks ago and told me that I must be doing something wrong because there have been complaints about my class.  She stated that there must be something 'off' about my teaching strategies, and that she would be coming in to observe my classroom and tell me ways I can improve by changing the ways I do things.

I wasn't all that concerned and in fact I welcome her into my room so that she can see that I do indeed perform very well as a teacher.  However, she never came, and things got a little worse.

On Friday, I became so suddenly ill that I could barely stand on my two feet.  I sent a message to her via one of my students and asked her if it was possible to get me a sub for the last hour of the day so that I could go home.  She instead sent for me directly and had me come to her office.  Upon seeing my state, she insisted I go home right then and there, and she insisted on driving me herself.

Before we left the building however, she gave me this horrible expression and said "Is that why you were so mean to that child?"

I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I also knew she didn't have the full story.  Earlier that day, I had refused to let a child out of my homeroom, but it wasn't done due to a bad mood or just to be mean.  You see, my homeroom class is EXTREMELY unruly and disrespectful.  They never sit down and just loiter around the room, they yell at each other, they dance, they don't do things I ask them to do, and if they have a pass to go somewhere and I follow up on them... well they never go where they were supposed to go.  They misbehave SO much that other teachers have come across the hall just to chew them out.  The problem is that I'm very limited on how I can discipline them.  I can't PHYSICALLY make them sit.  I can't write them all up because I would get chewed out by the assistant principals for being excessive, and the lack of control would reflect badly on my part.  I can't give them bad grades because... well there are no grades for homeroom of course.

This really leaves me with one option:  Don't allow them to go anywhere until they start showing respect.  I told my homeroom kids that this policy was going into place, but on Friday one girl insisted she had an assignment due during homeroom.  I told her there was no way a teacher would make an assignment due during homeroom, and that if she hadn't turned it in yet, that was due to a lack of responsibility and time management on her part.  She kept smart mouthing me about it, challenging my authority and asking me if I really was daring not to let her out of the room... to which I firmly replied that her act of asking five hundred times was not going to change my policy.  So what did the teen do?

She texted our principal and told my principal that she was going to receive a 0 on her assignment because I was too mean to let her out of class and didn't care if she failed or not.

Basically, my principal has given students the excuse to be tattle tales.  This perhaps is not a bad things.  However, what IS a bad thing is that my principal should consider the fact that students complaining.... are usually complaining because they don't like facing consequences.  They are emotional, hormonal, self-entitled young adults who would complain about anything they felt touched on their pride.

I tried to explain the situation to my principal, but she didn't give me the chance to respond, giving me another horrible look and interrupting me with a "No, You were just plain old mean to that child.  There was no reason for you to treat that child that way!"

I just nodded my head, sick and yearning to go lay down in bed.

--

Okay, so yesterday was my first day back.  I was so sick that I ended up in bed Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  During one of my classes, a student informed me that he had never taken algebra I.  I was a bit shocked.  Report cards come out tomorrow, and this kid was JUST now telling me that he hadn't taken algebra I?  (I teach algebra II)  Needless to say, I was quite concerned.  I took my lunch break to go see the counselor, who sent me to the math department head, who sent me to the principal.

I went to go discuss the issue with her, and the department head joined us.  Some conversation took place and I mentioned that this was failing my class.  The principal gave me one of those looks and said "Well everyone is flunking your class!!!"  I told her that her statement was not true, and she just shook her head and said "No, it IS true.  Everyone and their cousin is flunking your class!  Your teaching skills are abhorrent and something's got to change... You just don't know how to teach!"  She went on and on like this for a good few minutes, and I just felt my spirit sinking.

I tried to mention to her that the child, I feel, would still be flunking algebra I because I think he needs an IEP  (an IEP is a document meant for students who need to be placed in special education.)  This REALLY upset the principal, and she snapped on me, telling me she didn't ever want to hear something like that come from my lips again because I just didn't know how to teach, and because I was no one to be making such judgements.

I was a bit astonished.  As someone who evaluates his learning progress, and someone who interacts with him on a daily basis, aren't I one of the best judges for such a situation?

Confused and hurt, I was dismissed.

Well guess what?  Later I found out two things:
1.  The kid HAD taken algebra I.  I made a fool of myself and I angered the principal when I didn't even have to have that interaction with her.
2.  The principal had done something behind my back the week before:

Last week I had to run something down to the counselor, but my schedule simply did not allow me to get it to her before the deadline time.  Well, the principal had offered to hold my class for a few seconds so I could drop it off across the building.  My class that day had been quite noisy, and I had JUST got done chewing them out because I couldn't teach the lesson due to all of their side chatter.  When I stepped out, my principal asked them how I was as a teacher.

I had just got done chewing them out.  What do you think happened?
They whined and complained big time.  They said that I NEVER try to help them.  If you have read most of my posts, you will know nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyways, this all just has me quite bummed.  I respect my principal beyond words, but I simply feel like she thinks I'm some awful teacher.  It would be understandable, to me, if she had witnessed one of my classes and THEN felt she could say that about me.  However, she has not been in my classroom ONCE.  Instead, she has come to her conclusion based off a few emotional, self-entitled, hormonal students.  She hasn't checked my data, she hasn't talked to the kids I taught last year... she simply assumes.

What also bothers me is that my students' grades make a PERFECT bell curve, as grades should.  But it seems that every principal always want the bell curve skewed to the far left.  If I taught 100 students, and 90 made A's, but 10 made F's, do you realize that all those A's would mean nothing?  The ONLY thing principals care about nowadays are your failures.  It's as though they are blind to your successes.... and it bums me out.  What kind of job refuses to see where you succeed and instead only points out where it APPEARS you have failed? It's not motivating... AT ALL.  And the worst part is this:  On my part, at least, those failures are NOT my fault.  If students refuse to do their work, how could I in good conscious give them a passing grade?  When I look through my grade book and there are 15 0's because students won't turn in work, what am I to do?

Instead of pointing the finger where it belongs, it ALWAYS gets pointed to the teacher.

I feel like I'm a great teacher.
There's not much I will say I'm good at, but I'm good at teaching.  It's not something I say with blind pride and arrogance.

My new principal is VERY serious about her job.  Her job was to come into this school and fix it.  That means eliminating ANYTHING that causes the school to look bad.  How secure am I when she takes the words of students and thinks I'm a terrible teacher who never helps her students?

And then lately I've felt like a failure as a wife as well.  I won't bore anyone with those details, but I feel, in most areas right now, that I'm a complete failure.

So how am I doing today?
I think my last post here sums it up.

Sorry about the sandwich posting, but I've been waiting and waiting for someone to respond here... and no one has.  Finally, I can't take it anymore and I just need somewhere to unwind a bit.

It's only 1.5 hours into my day and I feel cruddy.  I've -been- feeling cruddy.  I feel like nothing is going right in my life, and then I feel selfish for my dperession because I know my woes are so insignificant it's not even a slightly bit humorous.

It's getting harder and harder each day to wear the mask my students see.  I just... almost don't even care.  In fact, I hardly care enough to finish this post.

I was supposed to ask my boss for a day to get my tags renewed, but I couldn't even do it.  I went into her office to give her something, and her whole tone totally brought me down even further.  I retreated without asking and now I'm here sitting in my classroom, dreading the entrance of the students...

I'm tired, but feeling quite alright. Glad I didn't have to give a speech today.

Singelli : Wow the principle sounds like kind of a jerk (I would use the word that is slang for "female dog" but I'll avoid the use of profainity.) I would have totally told the principle that if she has such concern for the students learning in the class; that she should teach your classroom for about a week and she what happens. Actually you could offer to have the principle "sit in" on your most "disruptive" class and see what you are dealing with. Now the teacher giving out her cell phone number seems kind of suspisous to me; I would have called the police since that sounds like an almost "inappropiate relationship" with the students. I mean if teachers can't befriend students on Facebook, Myspace, or whatever; then she shouldn't be allowed to give out her cell phone number.

Now on to your latest post (don't worry about sandwich post); I must sadly say, welcome to the World of Public Teaching; where students don't have any respect for the teachers (particulary Math teachers...no offense). Also I agree that the one girl who has an assignment during homeroom is so FALSE; like you said homeroom teachers don't give out assignments (at least not my homeroom classes). If I was in your situation I would tell the students, I would have gone "crazy" and most likely gotten fired. I would have offered that you should take away all the cell phones from your students, put them in a bag, kept it on your desk, then once class is over you give the cell phones back; but that would put you in a tougher situation.

Your definetly a strong will person to put up with the principle and students.

I want virtual hugs.... please?

Just pm them me or put them on my profile. 

I feel a little better today. But still I feel pretty awful.