The Tattooed Teacher

So much to say…not any good way to be organized about it. Let me just jump right in…

A new school year starts tomorrow. The students will sleepily stumble onto their buses. The buses will bounce them to our door. The students will depart the buses. The students will be thoroughly searched, passed over with a metal detector, eyed over carefully and talked with to catch any flint of something not right with them…

This scene happens every school day where I work. I do not work not work in a public school. I do not work in the suburbs. I work in a school for students with severe behavior problems. Most teachers, most people, most anybody would fear these students…

…gang members and wannabes, bi-polar disorders, conduct disorders, autistic, drug offenders, gun offenders, blade offenders, learning disabled, mentally retarded, can’t read, violent, profane, difficult, frustrating…the list goes on…

This is my calling. I teach these students – the ones who were thrown away and who fell through the cracks. I teach more than academics, I teach behavior. I have to. They never were. This is a mission. I love my job…

These are words I tell myself on the day before school starts. I’ve got to hit the ground running. There is so much ground to make up. My students are so far behind. Some people say for many processes, that it is “a marathon, not a sprint.” But last year was a sprint, and the years before that, and I know there will be no slowing down.

I sprained my ankle last Tuesday, on the first day back for teachers at our building. Nothing daredevilish, just stepped off a curb into a parking lot dip and heard a loud pop. I’ve been limping along since then, and now I’m sick and have a lot of snot and I just feel like crap. Not a very good start. It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow it begins.