WARNING RANTY VENTING POST AHEAD

 

 Alright. That's it. I have had it up to HERE with this school. My elementary school has got to be one of the most ridiculous places on the PLANET. I am absolutely sick of this! "Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh," I am sure you are saying to yourselves, "here he goes again! Whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch. At least you have a job, loser!"

WHATEVER DO NOT GUILT ME OUT OF MY FEELINGS.

Let me tell you what's been going on since school started up again a couple weeks ago. I was looking forward to this semester; I had been promised fewer afterschool classes to teach, and I would not be teaching the youngest students (grade 1 and 2). I was excited! I thought, "Man! I've got this teaching thing down! I think this is gonna be a good semester!"

And then, to borrow a line from Julia Sweeney, God said "Ha!"

I got my schedule for this semester last Friday. This semester, I will actually be getting paid overtime, which is definitely a plus. But the work I am doing for this over time makes me want to kill myself. Or more accurately, it makes me want to kill this school. I have to teach 11 after school classes - up from seven last semester - four of which consist PRIMARILY of 1st and 2nd graders. Remember? The ones I wasn't going to have to teach this semester?

JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.

What's worse is that, in these classes, I teach alone. No other person there to help with translation issues, should they arise. Add to that, I was told by my school to go out and purchase (personal copies of) textbooks for these classes, to be assigned to the students. Not a single student had any clue that they needed a textbook for the class, and why would they? It's not like anyone had told them! And have you ever tried to teach 1st and 2nd graders from a textbook? Entirely in English? With ZERO translation? It's impossible! Just not happening. 

So, instead of this easy and relaxing semester, I'm putting up facebook statuses like "Nolen Deibert time to do battle with my afterschool classes that inspire a rage in me so violent I want to throw small children in a lake filled with piranhas >:O" and make me feel like Carmen Maura in "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"

This is me. Very soon. A Spanish lady about to go into hysterics.

*A note of clarification. I do not have any real issues with the children. If there were someone to translate, or if we could just play games all day, it'd be just fine. I love the two times a week I go visit the nursery. But sometimes I just can't handle it all.