Anger

Right now at my primary school, the elevator is broken with no fix date in sight. This is the school where I do not have a classroom and teach from a cart. I do have an awesome cart--- but it's basically unusable without the elevator as it is about 100 pounds when empty and there is no way I would be able to cart it up and down the four flights of stairs present in the school. My lessons have suffered greatly because of this. I am limited to using whatever supplies I can carry, and that is not much. Crayons, markers, and printer paper are now the primary things I use to teach art. I hate it. I have shed so many tears over how unfair it is that I don't have the resources or ability to do better for my students. It depresses me and makes me hateful/fearful for each week knowing that I have to work around dragging many pounds of supplies around to different classrooms. I feel like I get zero support from any teacher or administrator, who view my time as an intrusion into their classroom space. There is an empty classroom at this school which recently opened because our enrollment was too low to support 20 classes. This room is now being used as a "data room" instead of being used by me or any of the other support staff that teach from bags or carts or with no space of our own save closets or corners. This data room is a function of the GREAT TESTING ESCAPADE that goes on at this school, where every free moment and second is used to test and push evaluation and data gathering on these students in efforts to boost our MAP scores. It disgusts me and infuriates me that testing has become the centerpiece of teaching. I understand the value of data and to an extent support the push to gather data on student learning-- but only as a tool to inform instruction.

The basic attitude in this district is that I must just soldier on, so I do. But underneath the surface, I am mad. I am seething. I want more for these kids and I hate that they are being used as test subjects. Oh, and make no mistake, I do firmly believe that they are being used.

I must persevere, I must be better than this cycle of anger, bitterness, and cynicism that eats teachers alive... but its so difficult right now.