Newspaper and Other Annoyances

A family emergency kept me up until 4 am last night, and I honestly did not expect to be going to school today. Of course, being the type of person I am, I went anyway.
I scheduled a history review on chapter eight for Wednesday, instead of giving them a test in two weeks. The first available day for me to give a test is in two weeks, (if you can believe how bogged down these kids are,) and so as not to kill them, I figured a quiz would be easier.
They all voted for this instead of a test.
Finishing history, we went on to the picture books. I am coming to hate them more day by day, but I am a nothing in the grand scheme of this retarded school, so I don't really have that much of a say.
And ironically, I just taught the girls about the first amendment that entitles us all to free speech.
In 7a I had much more to time to dwell on the "funner" side of things, and it was a nice lesson.
There was a newspaper meeting scheduled after school, and we tried to get started even without the principal.
Could you believe she wants us to get our first issue out by the end of this week? And could you believe that I'm heading this thing? I know, I talk a lot, huh?
We started the meeting by choosing a name for the paper. We agreed on "The E.T."
Et in Hebrew means pen. In English we made it stand for the "Elementary Times." The symbol of our newspaper is a pen.
I gave the girls an opportunity to suggest more titles, but they all fell in love with this. We had already voted on it and sworn it in by the time the principal joined us. She usually doesn't like including anything Hebrew in our English stuff, but she was too late to object to our decision. She even seemed to like it a bit.
One for me.
We spent an hour getting the jobs divvied up between all the girls and setting a draft deadline for Tuesday so that we could begin typing that night. Surprisingly, the girls were ok with it all.
Even I'm a bit excited over this newspaper. If we get this thing to print on time, I will make sure these kids get a pizza party.
After the meeting, I went to the principal to ask her about a special surprise I had planned for my students, and I was surprised when she agreed, no problem.
My little sister is excited too. She'll be coming to school with me next Sunday.
I also spoke to her about the quiz I had prepared for Wednesday, and she insisted that it be open notes.
I didn't mind at all, quite the contrary, but then she started planning this huge affair out of it. She thinks her BIG plans are fun. But they're far from it. I hated to break it to her, but open notes is as far as I am planning to go. I told her so, and she seemed a bit disgruntled. I told her that the test wouldn't be that easy either...especially not if it was going to be open book.
She closed her office door and had a chat with me about how she couldn't keep defending me anymore.
She claimed that at P.T.A. she had a bunch of mothers complaining about me and that if I wasn't going to begin listening to her, she wouldn't keep defending me to them.
Funny thing, I had gotten very different regards.
She gave me a 500 page looseleaf so that I could look through it for ideas to use on my test.
Yeah right.
It's sitting high on a shelf with a lot of other junk she gave me that I probably will return without ever having used.
She began telling me that I disobeyed her too many times and that if I didn't shape up she'd refuse to work with me or defend me any more. (As if she did in the first place, but whatever.) She basically showed me the door. To her office and to my job.
As I got ready to leave, I told her about S.G.L. She had a little problem thinking of an idea for a picture book so I gave her the idea of writing the Purim story as a picture book for kids.
S.G.L. was thrilled. I'm so happy. I just hope it works out nicely for her. I gave her resources to use that I hoped would help her.
The principal gave me her first real smile that day.
I think I need to explain here that she does smile at me a lot. But I usually don't get to see genuine ones. I'm usually on the receiving end of her 'condescending' smile, or her 'I can't wait ruin your day' smile. A real one is nice to get, although by this time, I really don't care.
When I got home I called my husband and he gave me an interesting idea.
I had decided over the past week that no matter whether I was offered another teaching position or not, I was not going to go back to this school under any circumstances.
My husband figured that I had nothing to lose by calling one or two parents to get the story right.
After all, I am teaching their daughters and I do want the best for them. I'm getting mixed messages, and I would like the mothers to get together and decide what is it they really want. What's really going on here?
At the same time as I would be talking to the mothers, they would get the implied idea that the principal was somehow botching things up for me.
That's all I need.
I'm not doing this for me. I just want the message to get out about the principal. If I go out, I'm going to go out with a bang.
Well, first I have to gather my nerves from where they're huddling in the corner.
I spent all afternoon making up a magnificent test that should be a lot of fun for the girls. I hope it gets approved.
I can tell you one thing, if she doesn't approve this, something will bang.
I did the report cards, and from a teacher's point of view I can tell you they're not worth anything. We teacher's make up marks left and right.
Ok. Well maybe not the marks, (although some of them we do,) but definitely the comments. I was taking a look at the discrepancies there were between our first term comments and now, and I just have to laugh.
And now that I have finished all I had to do for tonight, I think I'll go into the closet and scream.
Nighty night!