Backwards

Today wasn't a bad teaching day. It was actually a pretty good teaching day. Students were productive, I ran a teacher/parent conference myself, I didn't bring any paper work home because I got it all done at school. Even the traffic wasn't too bad today.

But something happened to me earlier in the week which got on my nerves, and I've got to get it out or it will pickle my soul. Which is not a good thing, since I like my soul fresh.

There are some people who are just not gifted in teaching. I know a dude who is such, yet he continues to teach. He may be gifted at other things, but that is something he hasn't figured out yet because he is too busy being NOT-gifted at teaching.

His students are bored out of their minds in his class. They ditch it whenever possible. They hide out in my classroom until the last possible minute. They go reluctantly when I make them go. They are not being challenged and their needs are not being met through that class.

I feel sorry for these kids. Some of them are my former students, so I let them help me in my own class on certain weeks. They help out during special projects and games. They stand in as substitutes sometimes. We used to hold a special, small class on our own for them - especially for the girls - until we got too short-handed to do that any more.

He does not like it when I invite my former students over. He hasn't said as much, but his attitude towards me is palpable. He probably sees it as me luring his audience away. I see it as giving the students a chance to experience a more positive learning experience.

I had a little skirmish with him this past week - a rather public skirmish. I'm a little embarrassed at my immaturity for falling down to his level. But he made a whole lot of hoopla and zero helpfulness, and I was pissed off. It was wrong because he "corrected" something I did (my attempt to prevent the wrong thing in the first place) which made me do it wrong all over again, since I didn't have enough time to fix his "correction."

I got rather confrontational. I have no apologies for being confrontational, although I suppose I should have kept my voice down. He did make the choice of correcting me in the middle of the activity, rather than waiting until the end. He had that coming to him.

Long story short, it makes me really sad, and really angry that there are horrible teachers like that out there, teaching horribly. I am by no means a perfect teacher. But I am also not a teacher because I like to preen my ego by hearing myself bore the will to live out of a group of intelligent teenagers.

It also makes me rather annoyed/disappointed/angsty at people in general, because (except for a select few who have gotten the same, and more, from this dude) I am looked upon as the enemy. I'm the "bad guy" because I'm not fitting into this preconceived notion of QSAG - Quiet Submissive Asian Girl. That I got it coming to me since I "asked" for it by confronting him like that.

I am unapologetic for not fitting into someone else's ideas on who they think I should be. I spent 23 out of my 26 years being the QSAG, and I am SO over THAT.

I'm going to keep offering these opportunities to those teenagers. And if that dude doesn't like it, then so be it.