This week is really illustrating how different my place of work is.
Before I get into it though, no matter how sad, depressed, angry, or hopeless I sound- I love my job with all my heart.
My classroom has a daily and even weekly routine. It is different from most schools. My students don't have coats and back packs. They don't come with school supplies. Most don't have books at home. Very few of my students live with "Mom" and "Dad". I have to be very careful about planning and about what I say or how I word things.
My students grow up knowing more about the world than they should. Students as young as 5 are involved in gangs and take part in vandalizing their home town.. There is gang activity, families with too many children, drug use, alcoholism.
Its an area filled with poverty.
Its also an area filled with people who have bigger hearts than most people you have met. So don't assume that because someone is poor, they won't amount to much.
Okay, so in my room things are different, but routine. This week has NOT been routine, even for me. I've been forgotten about many times, I've had students tell me they don't like this school or class, its boring, they hate it (even if they just say it because they're dramatic.. it hurts). I am behind on many things. Having behavior problems. A student crying and breaking down over being bullied and how kids from another school try to jump him on his way home and they have knives. Hes in 5th grade. He has to worry about making it home alive because he has to walk. My students don't even know about their cultural history. People purposefully leave things out textbooks because they're gruesome (or because they don't want everyone to know how awful people were). That alone makes me want to cry.
I'm already worried about students who don't wear coats when they come to school. It is so cold in the mornings.
I'm wondering what parent teacher conferences will be like.. if my parents will come. If they will like me (I still haven't met most of them)
I knew it would be different, but I never realized in how many ways. Even on the days when I'm ready to scream, cry, and pull my hair out.. I wouldn't want to teach anywhere else right now. Other places would be boring. The fact that my students have lived their lives to this point and have such great senses of humor and big hearts means so very much to me. Even when I complain, I whine, and when I'm scared.. I love my job, in this exact town, exact school, exact grade, and exact room.
