It is the wee hours of the morning and I am writing this post to escape the relentness f*cking I can hear through the paper-thin walls of this wretched box that is my home. Also, I have survived one whole term of teaching in a Victorian public school with my sanity intact and I feel that this is the kind of milestone I should celebrate on my blog. Here goes.
Positive
I like my job. I don't count the hours. I don't feel swept up in a cloud of anxious misery everytime my next shift approaches. I don't have shifts anymore because I am no longer a drone filling empty space on an employer's timesheet. I am a professional. For the first time in my life I have an employer who trusts me. I have the freedom to be creative and think for myself. My life has more meaning and purpose than it has ever had before because I am doing the only truly fulfilling task life has to offer: helping people.
I have two weeks off and I am still being paid. Enough said.
Indoor soccer games every Friday afternoon in the school gym.
Minus
The avarice beast that is the school bureaucracy and the precious minutes it trys to suck out of my life.
Unfortunately, slagging off the people I work with (colleagues or students) poses an ethical dilemma for me. All of my colleagues and almost all of the students I work with are great. However, I do deal with some difficult personalities on a daily basis. I accept that that is part of the job but it does mean disappointement and frustration are a common experience.
Interesting
Cultural diversity. I grew up in a town where everyone is Anglo-Celtic and middle class. The suburb that I teach in may be the most culturally diverse in Australia. My students come from a series of pretty diverse backgrounds: Vietnamese, East African, Pacific Islander and, of course, Anglo-Celtic. Mixed in with that bunch are a sprinkling of Chinese and Hispanic kids.
Asperger's Syndrome and Autism. I still don't understand these conditions. I've been thrown in the deep end and I don't have the resources of the skills I need to really help these students succeed.
And...
I am having one of those dark evenings where I hate the world and everyone it, especially you. Leave me alone while go back to bed and make a list of all the selfish, mediocre, superficial, cynical bullies I have to put up with in my life.
Goodnight.
Positive
I like my job. I don't count the hours. I don't feel swept up in a cloud of anxious misery everytime my next shift approaches. I don't have shifts anymore because I am no longer a drone filling empty space on an employer's timesheet. I am a professional. For the first time in my life I have an employer who trusts me. I have the freedom to be creative and think for myself. My life has more meaning and purpose than it has ever had before because I am doing the only truly fulfilling task life has to offer: helping people.
I have two weeks off and I am still being paid. Enough said.
Indoor soccer games every Friday afternoon in the school gym.
Minus
The avarice beast that is the school bureaucracy and the precious minutes it trys to suck out of my life.
Unfortunately, slagging off the people I work with (colleagues or students) poses an ethical dilemma for me. All of my colleagues and almost all of the students I work with are great. However, I do deal with some difficult personalities on a daily basis. I accept that that is part of the job but it does mean disappointement and frustration are a common experience.
Interesting
Cultural diversity. I grew up in a town where everyone is Anglo-Celtic and middle class. The suburb that I teach in may be the most culturally diverse in Australia. My students come from a series of pretty diverse backgrounds: Vietnamese, East African, Pacific Islander and, of course, Anglo-Celtic. Mixed in with that bunch are a sprinkling of Chinese and Hispanic kids.
Asperger's Syndrome and Autism. I still don't understand these conditions. I've been thrown in the deep end and I don't have the resources of the skills I need to really help these students succeed.
And...
I am having one of those dark evenings where I hate the world and everyone it, especially you. Leave me alone while go back to bed and make a list of all the selfish, mediocre, superficial, cynical bullies I have to put up with in my life.
Goodnight.
