Updates, or "I'm not dead yet!"

Just busy gestating.

2007 wasn't the easiest year of my life, either personally or professionally. It had its high points, indeed, but most of my emotional energy got expended on dealing with infertility or dealing with some of the most challenging students I have ever had.

On the infertility front, after seven months of fertility issues prior to an official diagnosis in July, The Greatest Man in the World and I found out in November that we are expecting our first child this July. I'm in the second trimester, feeling better, and ready for some cautious optimism. The first trimester was rough between constant nausea and chronic exhaustion, but I had great support from TGMitW, our families, and the select few people at work with whom I chose to share our news.

I plan to return to teaching next winter. I've been very blessed to have not one, but two experienced-at-our-school long-term subs who are willing to come out of retirement and teach so that I can stay home with the baby till after Thanksgiving. One of the possible subs is the teacher whose retirement opened the position for which I was hired, so I'm very confident that she knows the course extremely well and that the students will be excellently taught (perhaps better than I would have taught them!) I'm sad that I won't get to teach Shakespeare next year, but it's worth it to be able to stay at home with baby.

Professionally, I think that a nearly six month break from teaching after this year might be a good thing. This year's junior class is challenging. Actually, a small cadre of no more than a dozen boys makes it challenging. They have caused problems with their behavior since they were in the seventh grade, and although people hoped that they would improve with age, it hasn't happened yet. Their behavior has, if anything, become more outrageous: rudeness to teachers, inappropriate comments, rowdiness, attention-seeking behavior...you name it, they're doing it. For whatever reason, they aren't being disciplined as much as they should be.

To maintain order in my classroom, I have to be much stricter in my management than I usually am, and it's frustrating for me. I prefer to have students talking to me and to each other and engaging with the texts we read, and I can't allow my classes to have casual discussions like that this year. I know that many of the non-problem-causing students get frustrated too; sometimes they'll even call the troublemakers out and tell them to knock it off. I've had to hand out detentions like they're candy and generally be a much less relaxed person than I usually am. In years past, I've been able to tell my students what the boundaries are, let them know I'm serious, and then we've been able to play within the boundaries. This year, there's no room for play. There have been moments when I've had to pull students out of class for reprimands or tell them flat-out that they have crossed the line into outright rudeness or inappropriateness. On a couple of occasions, I've felt uncomfortable to the point of being threatened. And I'm not the only teacher who's experiencing this.

We all report them, we all complain...and nothing is done.

This too shall pass.