End of Quarter Fatigue Sets In

I was hardly impressed with my high school students tonight. It was the last class of the quarter, so they should have been working hard to finish their final, which consisted of one new essay and two essay revisions from their work this quarter. I didn't think it was a lot to ask in the four hours I had them over the course of two days. My ELL student can earn a little slack because his thought and writing processes take so long. Bless his hard-working heart. The rest? Bleah. They are the type of students who are happy with their medicore grades. One student is going to fail, but he claims he's just going to school to impress the judge.

Whatever. Why do I care anyway? They could do better. But what do they say to me? "Miss, am I going to see you next quarter?" I'm not going anywhere. You trying to get me to leave? Geez. Bring it on, punk. You might be good at jacking cars, but your skills in driving me nuts aren't quite developed yet. And one girl said to me, "Miss, do you really need the money?" Actually the money is nice, but who teaches a writing class to a bunch of non-writers at 8:00 p.m. unless they enjoy it? Or try to enjoy it? The students don't understand. They all have shitty jobs so they can make their way. I'm sad that they think my frustration in their apathy constitutes a shitty job that I need just to get by.

It's hard being an English teacher sometimes. Students either love or hate your class. Very little gray area for most. None of my high school students--in a composition/creative writing course--enjoy writing in any way. They all need the credit and were hoping it would be an easy grade. Well, it is not too tough, but it is quite work-intensive. "Miss! All we do is WRITE!" Well, DUH! it's a freakin' writing class!

This week marks the end of the quarter, and luckily we happen to have a 3-day week to celebrate a state holiday. The last few weekends I've had to bring a lot of work home, so I'm completely entrenched in work right now. Entrenched. Whatever. BURIED! I just want to veg out with a good book and forget about work for a few days. Hurry up week! End already!