Blahg

Five years after purchasing a laptop for the sole purpose of writing a blahg, I am finally venturing forth. It's 12:11 a.m., two nights before the first day of school. And as with every year since 1975, I cannot sleep with the start of a new academic year so close.

As a student, I was awake with anticipation and excitement. I couldn't wait to find out what I would be learning. I loved the smell of the textbooks, and reading through the table of contents, guessing how far through the text we would make it. As a new teacher, I couldn't wait to set up the year's curriculum, the seating chart, the classroom bulletin boards.

It's my 8th year of teaching.

Now, my mind is racing, gearing up for battle. Ready to fight the good fight. And it is a fight.

I'm a middle school teacher, after all.

And not just a middle school teacher, a special education teacher.

And not just a special education teacher of middle school students, but one of students with emotional disorders in a neighborhood ruled by gangs.

And with each passing year, it feels more and more like a fight. Not just a fight, but a war. A war against poverty, drugs, gangs, ignorance and hopelessness.

I eat, sleep and breathe this job. I ache for my students to see passed the present, and I all too often see them on street corners dealing, smoking, representin'.

There is an almost 50% drop out rate of high school students in Chicago. One hundred percent of my 2004 8th grade homeroom students has dropped out or gotten kicked out of high school. (Albeit, as a special education teacher, I have a small homeroom and 2004 saw just four students. But, still. It's depressing.) I wonder how many students with IEPs make up that 50% drop out rate. I would guess at least 80%. And I would bet that in 99.9% of the dropout cases, there was a teacher along the way begging some case manager to evaluate the student for special needs. How do I find this out? I don't know. But this is one of the goals of this blahg. I am going to add one more fight to the cause and see if I can dig up some information. I will keep you posted.

The other goals I have are less inspiring. One is simply to approach the new school year in a new light to avoid complete burnout. This year I am looking at my classroom as a research project. Perhaps it will improve my teaching; perhaps getting the word out to the digital abyss will interest one reader who is inspired to figure something out to help in a way that I have not yet thought about?

Another goal is to decompress. I have some challenging students in my homeroom this year. I've already bought my new shoes for the school year---sneakers.

It's taken me five years to finally begin the blahgging. And now that I have, I plan to write at the end of every school day for at least one school year (and any nights when my insomnia kicks in). I imagine some days I will be inspired to go on and on, as I have done tonight. And other days, I might only have left in me one or two swear words. Who knows? I'll keep you posted....whoever you are.