OMG, what a week, and it's only Tuesday

Got stuck meeting with a parent till past 6. Explained the school discipline plan and how our multitudes of phone calls and emails are all part of that process. Had to quote chapter and verse, and still get a round of "can he have another chance?" Good grief, it's the 8th week of school, how many more 'second chances' can there possibly be? Meanwhile, the phone calls I really needed to make went un-made. Wow.
Then there's the darlings who continued talking instead of working on their assignment, even with the principal sitting right by them. They bragged about it, too. Unreal. I'm completely out of ideas, except to work their fingers to the bone.

Experience?

Here's a news item that appeared today: Many teachers have little or no experience.
Funny, here are informed researchers saying that it's a problem. Where were they when our esteemed Secrectary of Education stodd up and announced his preference for new teachers over veterans, as if battleground experience is irrelevant? And then we wonder where those experienced teachers have gone...

Just what I didn't need

So, it's been a ridiculous day, starting with helpless parents of helpless students, moving on to a conference with the parent who is allowing her child to mianipulate her and withhold his grades from her, capped off by an idiotic battle for a basic desk tool that my students will never be allowed to use again. Then I read Jay Matthews' column, here, and my blood is boiling. Exactly which teachers in this piece had 'low expectations' of their students? Exactly who are the people we keep hearing about? Fifteen years, four districts, five schools, and I've yet to meet one of these individuals practicing the 'soft bigotry of low expectations'. If anything, what we keep hearing is that we are demanding too MUCH of the students, not too little. One of today's parent's actually questioned why I included a few questions on my test from previously taught and tested material. Oh, I don't know, maybe because your 8th grader will be tested on ALL of this in the spring before we can talk about high school? Ya think?