Whew!! Where do I start? Everytime I think about my first year teaching, I get tears in my eyes.  I was so rough. When I was in college, I used to talk to my classmates all the time about what great ideas we could come up with and take into the classroom.  I remember graduation day, I was so excited.  I had interviewed with a middle school (the middle school I had attended) and I was sure I was going to get the assignment.  I did, and since I had graduated in December, I only had half the year left.  So I really didn't feel like that was my first year.  The following school year was when I felt like I had been thrown in with the sharks.  Here I was saying to myself, I really feel like I can relate to these students.  A lot of them had the same backgrounds that I had as a child.  I felt like I could inspire them by telling them parts of my past and saying "You can do whatever you want, if you just try. Look at me!" And they were like yeah right.  Everyday I went home wanting to cry.  Some days I did. 

Honestly, I feel like there is too much going on in Education.  Too many workshops, too many initiatives.  Just let me teach.  I'm not saying workshops are not a good thing. Professional development is good, but when I have to spend so much time completing paper work or some other assignment that I don't have time or energy for lesson plans, then something's wrong. 

I was really impressed with the program in Michigan and I wish there was such a program for new teachers (or even teachers who are burned out but still love the profession) here.

I don't think it's so much that there are bad teachers. I'm sure there are but I don't know why anybody would go into the profession NOT caring about students.  I think what happens is, we go in naive and then the reality sets in.  Everything is thrown at you at once and on top of that you have unruly students and parents who think the teacher is the be all, end all.

I recently had a grandmother come up to me at a program we had for grandparent's day with her grandchild and told her, if you have any problems, you just find Mrs. Briggman and she'll help you.  After the child walked away, she told me that sometimes the child comes to school hungry because the mom doesn't get up to feed her breakfast.  So I asked her,"Where do you live?" She mentioned some town. I didn't ask her, but the question I wanted to ask was if you're so concerned, why not take her to live with you.  (Sure hope that grandmother doesn't read this post.) Anyway, these are the types of things teachers have to deal with.  I have to worry about whether or not your child feels like learning today because she may not have had breakfast this morning, when it's all I can do to get up, get my three sons dressed, fed and off to school happy.

I don't know what the solution is but I know part of the equation is that the administration needs to stop spending money on BS professional development and find something that really works and keep doing it.  If a teacher is burned out, take a break and try something new, I did.  Because if you don't, the students suffer.  Don't let someone who has not spent at least five to ten years in the classroom be a principal.  And finally, just let me teach.

Last night, as I was picking the boys up from their various practices, I noticed that it was very "trafficky".  I wondered what was going on and then my gas alert chimed.  As I cursed in my head about how tired I am of buying gas, I tried to guage how much reserve time I had to look for some less expensive gas.  I cruised around for a while looking at the different prices, noticing that gas had gone up a bit.  Last week I was buying gas at about $3.50 a gallon.  It had gone up to $3.79.  Within a few minutes, one of my good friends called and told me that she had heard some story about gas going up to $6.00 per gallon.  WTF?!! I thought to myself.  Supposedly because of the hurricanes, gas is supposed to be sky high or should I say higher.  Where had I been?  Why hadn't I heard this story?  Oh of course, work.  The place where wanted to go (don't get me wrong) but also a place where if I hadn't gone back to, my family wouldn't make it.

Seriously, what is next.  My son, by the way, has a baseball tournament at the beach this weekend.  I just paid all the fees.  Close to $200 for everything and I have to drive to the beach.  What is the world coming to when you can barely afford to make sure your children are involved in the extracurricular activities that they enjoy.  But not only that, the activities that you use to keep them from having idle minds and scheming on trouble possibly and to keep them from becoming obese couch potatoes.

There's got to be a solution because I don't know about anybody else, but I just want to be able to live comfortably.  Not rich, just without worry.