Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Okay, so.... it's been a while

What's going on in the family? Well, Mrs. D. took that job at the big school district big high school. She is teaching 10th grade World History at a school in a... um.... (thinking of euphamism)... disadvantaged area. She really had a tough time adjusting.

Being in a large urban public school is better in some sense compared to the charter school she was at last year. The charter school didn't pay as well and never had the money for even the basic stuff so she ended up spended a good chunk of her pay on school supplies and such. On top of that, the owner of the school was a real dipwad.

Her new school doesn't have those problems. She's paid quite a bit more and the school is much better about providing the basics. Instead, she has to contend with overcrowding. She's a "floater" who doesn't have her own classroom. She teaches in three different classrooms. The other thing that just gets to her is the level of apathy- both among the students and the faculty. She has 10th grade students that have never been made to write an essay. And considering the part of town it's in, there are a lot of students who don't care about their education, and neither do their parents; in fact, for many of these kids, the parents aren't even a positive aspect of their lives in any way.

She's made some progress, though. She's challenging the students like they've never been challenged before. There are still the deadbeats, but she's getting through to some of them. I just hope she doesn't burn out.

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