The principal's office...

       Yesturday I got called into the pricipal's office...It was a bad week all around really, but this just topped it off.  My students were assigned a famous African-American to research (we had just finished a book about the 1960's and racial relations).  The had a list of questions they had to answer via research about thier person.  For once, the kids were excited about what they were doing.  They each had someone different so they were very excited to tell someone about what they found out.  And then, the principal's office...Not just me either, but my two partners in crime, the other two sixth grade English teachers.  Apparently what we were doing was not "TAKS" test related. In other words, because it was not multiple choice, because the kids actually had to analyze articles and answer open ended  questions with thier research, because it resembled the real world a little more closely than it reseambled the state test, we got shut down mid-project.  It was somewhere in that office that I thought "What in the Fuck am I doing here?" I don't know who the idiots are that come up with all of this stupid shit for teachers to do everyday, like teach kids how to take a test with a b c d (Yes, life is just like that), but I know one thing for sure, they are not teachers. 
            This brings me to my second point in frustration.  There is alot of talk about teachers/education/budget cuts in the news lately.  Yes, lets cut salaries of teachers and cut positions so there are even more kids stuffed into classrooms.  Oh, and I saw on the news that the average teacher makes 55,0000 dollars a year.  Yeah, maybe if they have been teaching for twenty years.  I get about 36,000 a year.  My pay check after taxes is 2,400 $.  Rent and utilites are 1,000...food, gas, grad. school, oh, and all of the things I buy for my classroom and my kids out of my own paycheck...Yeah, I am making the big bucks.  And I don't even have kids.  Oh and there is was also something about how teachers get all of these great benifits.. Do I have health insurance? Yes, I pay 245.00 a month for it. Just for me.  My mom is a teacher and pays 600.00 a month for the family plan.  Great benefits...So now, if teachers don't get fired, they may get paid less. Awesome.  Nobody teaches for the money because the money sucks and the job is too hard.  Maybe if lawmakers and politicians would listen to the people who are in classrooms with kids everyday, the system would not be so broken...Oh, one more thing.  There was a comment that teaching is a part time job on one of the newscasts.  Again, I don't know where the hell those jobs are.  I am required to be on campus from 7:45 to 4:15.  I am teaching from 8:05 to 4:05 with 30 minute lunch...Then I go home with my stack of papers, tests, essays that my kids did that day and begin to grade.  It's a more than full time job.  And it sucks. 
       Anyways, this week has not been a fun one.  A week and a half until spring break.  I hope I can hold together until then.  I am doing everything I can to just keep my head above water...