Alternate title: Top Ten Things I Won't Miss About My Job When I Quit.10. Theme vests. Believe it or not, there are actually adults out there who wear vests, to work, with 3-dimentional sculptures reflecting the nearest holiday or season, and some of them are high school teachers.
9. Those little slips of paper that I get in my box every two weeks telling me how many copies I've used and how many I have left in my "copy budget" for the year.
3. The way the cafeteria announces its faculty "special" that week, and, well it's never very special.
2. The emailed "Friendly reminders" that we get two or three times a week that seems vaguely threatening and never friendly.
9. Those little slips of paper that I get in my box every two weeks telling me how many copies I've used and how many I have left in my "copy budget" for the year.
8. The three or four phone calls I get during class. Somtimes its people asking for the other teach who uses that room and isn't in there, and I'm asked, "well do you know where he is?" despite the deailed rosters telling us where to find every teacher during every period of every day. Sometimes it's the office, calling someone a student upstairs about a referral. When I'm in the middle of trying to get across something and it rings, sometimes, I pick it up and then drop it back into the cradle, buying me a couple extra minutes until they say, "WTF?" and call again. Sometimes I "accidentally" unplug it, so that they have to send office aides.
7. Two words: "MATH JOURNALS" This is the new thing in math education. Not kidding. So far, I have resisted this attempt to draw me into the collective, because I, well, think it's stupid.
6. Getting a cheap wall calendar from the district for the holidays, after finding
out that the district office had an evening holiday party for themselves with prime rib. (Oh, then we were all invited to the cafeteria during the next day, and offered the leftovers, "for free." I'm not making this up.)
5. Unannounced fire drills. We all line up facing away from the school, that way if the school explodes, it's better to be struck with projectiles in the occipital lobe than in the face, I guess. Or maybe it's because they don't want the kids to watch the school burn, because that might be a moment of pleasure for them Or the teachers. Meh.
4. Wet days. I have an outside room, and the sand clumps and sticks in the kids' shoes and gets tracked inside. Then it falls out of the shoe treads onto the floor in little clumps. Then it dries some more and falls apart. By the end of the day, my classroom looks like a sandbox.
7. Two words: "MATH JOURNALS" This is the new thing in math education. Not kidding. So far, I have resisted this attempt to draw me into the collective, because I, well, think it's stupid.
6. Getting a cheap wall calendar from the district for the holidays, after finding
out that the district office had an evening holiday party for themselves with prime rib. (Oh, then we were all invited to the cafeteria during the next day, and offered the leftovers, "for free." I'm not making this up.)5. Unannounced fire drills. We all line up facing away from the school, that way if the school explodes, it's better to be struck with projectiles in the occipital lobe than in the face, I guess. Or maybe it's because they don't want the kids to watch the school burn, because that might be a moment of pleasure for them Or the teachers. Meh.
4. Wet days. I have an outside room, and the sand clumps and sticks in the kids' shoes and gets tracked inside. Then it falls out of the shoe treads onto the floor in little clumps. Then it dries some more and falls apart. By the end of the day, my classroom looks like a sandbox.
3. The way the cafeteria announces its faculty "special" that week, and, well it's never very special.
2. The emailed "Friendly reminders" that we get two or three times a week that seems vaguely threatening and never friendly.
and the most annoying thing that I won't miss if I quit my job:
1. Apple-themed anything.
