so glad it is the week-end

so i'm a little anxious when it comes to work. i really need a year-round school where in stead of taking off the summer months, i could take off the winter months. seriously, wouldn't it be so much better? brighter mornings and happier teachers and kids! more hours of sunlight! you can meet with students up till 5pm and still have four hours of light for when you go home! and wouldn't it be more natural? we're depressed in the winter - for some of us that means we should be hibernating (how else did depression manage to survive natural selection?) in the winter. i wonder if a long long time ago humans actually did hibernate. i wonder what mr. diamond would have to say about depression.

anyway the anxiety comes because of the mess that was my tuesday literacy observation. i'm not one to blame other people for my screw-ups, but it would have been much better had we not been kicked out of the school at 4pm the day before (the janitor who is usually there till 20:30 was out sick and nobody else who is capable of setting the alarm was staying any later). that was one factor. the other factor is that it's february. in other words the dead of winter, when i should be hibernating! oh yeah, and yet another is that it is my first year and i was pretty much thrown into the fire.

today i had my post-observation. the principal informed me that she would do another observation "to gather more data because the staff recommendations are due next week." this is where i feel i can identify with my boss - being disorganized under an "i've got it under control" facade. don't you think she should have had sufficient data before this week?

anyway even if i am not asked to return it'll be ok. it'll give me a chance to maybe go to a district that has a serious dual-language program. and besides it was my first year. there were a million reasons i could have complained, a million reasons i could have quit; in fact i think my first year was empirically one of the worst first years in the history of first years of elementary school teaching. but it has been a fantastic learning experience. maybe i should pre-empt it and apply for a position in my old district?

besides, i think i should go where the dual-language is. and i see it going downhill in this district. there aren't any foreign language classes after fourth grade until they get to high school, so what is the point?

i'm not sure the majority of people that make up this community can actually appreciate why our kids need to learn foreign languages. yesterday i read an article in US News and World Report - a magazine which i don't usually read, but the new yorker was not available at the gym - about the state of foreign language education in our country. the article even mentioned that europe has a running joke about how most people in the US can only speak one language. i'm paraphrasing. but is this true? i believe it, it's a running joke with me!


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i had the oddest dream last night. i've had dreams in which my students have appeared. in this one, i was with another teacher who was close to my age, and we went to a bar and two of our students were with us. we were smoking from a hookah and then the students were smoking, and we didn't stop them. so at first i wanted to plan our story and lie about it, and i think i did, but in the end i told the truth to the principal but said that it wasn't my intention for them to smoke! god i hope i'm doing something GOOD for my students!