you work in elementary education (I'm not a teacher) and all you want to say is "if you don't shut your mouth NOW, I'm going to cut out your tongue and staple it to your desk". And that's the highly edited version of my thoughts.
I don't like kids. Never have. In fact, it's not hyperbole to say that I loathe kids. Ok, ok, I used to loathe kids, now I just dislike them. My kid is fine; I've raised him to be tolerable. A small number of his friends are fine in small doses. But by and large I'm not one of those women who "just looooves" kids. I think anyone who "just looooves" kids is either medicated, a pedophile or clinically insane. Seriously. So how the HELL did I end up working with kids? It plagues me, this question. The simple answer is schedule. Nothing beats being off when your kid is off so you don't have to worry if your daycare provider "just looovvees" kids in all the wrong ways, if you get my drift. So, I work around children in a school setting. To say I self medicate regularly is putting it lightly. I call it my "pretty box": I get paid pretty good for part-time work that's not, let's face it, terribly hard. I get holidays off, two weeks at Christmas, summers. And my day is over by 3:30 p.m. So in that sense, it's perfect. However, there could be no other profession more poorly matched for my personality than working with kids. Butcher, maybe.
Honestly, most days are ok, but there are those like today where I feel like I've been run over by a train and I only work with these kids two hours a day. They are "LD": learning disabled, which mostly means ADD/ADHD/dyslexia and many of them have learned a set of unattractive behaviors or have learned to use their diagnoses as their fallback excuse for not being able to..... whatever it is you are asking them to do. And I'm sure their disabilities play a role. I'm just not sure that's the complete picture. I think a lot of them learned to manipulate their world and get everyone around them to absolve them of personal responsibility because of their "problem". One child in our class is particularly manipulative. You can tell just by how she changes gears/tactics when you put the screws to her regarding her behavior.
I've worked in a school setting for nearly three years now in various capacities. Frankly, I want to go back to criminal law. At least criminals were polite and treated me with a modicum of respect and dignity. I never wanted to shoot myself in the head after spending time with one of our clients/defendants. Which is more than I can say for many a child and parent these days....
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