August 16

Nifty-summer-teaching-job has completed, at least for the time being, and the course evaluations are beginning to roll in again. Just like last time, most of them are really positive. However, there are a very few that really piss me off to my very core.

One of the high school students (or possibly a parent) rated me as a "below average" teacher but failed to follow it up with a comment as to what, exactly, they felt was substandard. Not that a comment explaining their opinion would have made me feel any better. It most certainly would not have to be sure. It's just that the evaluation includes only one very general question about the teacher and nothing about asking students how much effort/interest they invest in their own success.

It's just so infuriating to me that I had to deal with the class of high school delinquents. Remember, this is the class that had two boys from the group home for mentally ill teens who had previously been incarcerated as well as the overgrown jocks who were disruptive and disrespectful each and every week for the better part of the three hour class.

Then there was the parent of one of my fourth graders who didn't feel that her child's disability was acknowledged adequately during the class. Umm. Your child is deaf and had an interpreter in the class each week. We all had to acknowledge your child's disability. It's impossible to ignore the big gal up front signing and lip syncing to your child for two and half fucking hours. What the fuck?

And don't let me forget the father of one of the kindergartners who decided that he didn't like the way I pronounced a particular word. Here's the thing. I don't have a very strong accent of any kind so I'm not sure what it was he didn't like about my voice/pronunciation, but if he really believed what he said on the evaluation, why didn't he correct me during one of the lengthy diatribes he forced me to sit through each week?

Oh yes. This guy just thought that he was soooo fabulously interesting. Incredibly, he strikes me as one of those who is pretending to be heterosexual. Unfortunately, he's not doing a good job of it. This guy is so feminine but I wasn't sure about his homosexuality until I read my evaluation. His bitchy comments confirmed my suspicions. I could care less if he's gay, buy why pretend to be otherwise?

Before getting the first phase of my evaluations, I sent an email to my supervisor expressing interest in teaching some weekend classes this fall. Now I'm rethinking that decision. I don't love the job. I love the paycheck but dealing with kids and parents is draining and maybe not worth the aggravation.