Why teachers cry on Sundays and Holidays...

I don't hate my job.

I have to keep saying that aloud to myself. It's true, but it's easy to forget. I don't know any teachers who sleep well on Sunday nights. I don't know any teachers who sleep for pretty much all of Labor Day weekend. And for those of us who go back to work tomorrow... well...

I don't hate my job. I don't hate my job. I don't hate my job.

Once I am in my classroom with my students, it will be easy to remember. I enjoy teenagers. They're fun. I enjoy teaching math. It's fun. The New York City Department of Education... well... they're less fun.

I fully expect to walk into work tomorrow and find a memo in my mailbox that suggests that I make sure that I re-do my bulletin board before the end of the week, because the current bulletin board is from last year. Now, for those of you that are remembering little posters with kittens that said, "Hang In There" on the bulletin boards, that's unacceptable. Every bulletin board needs to have student work on it. (But it should be interesting... they're not really interested in worksheets of math problems) And the work should be graded according to a rubric which also needs to be posted. And it needs to have the name of the class and the name of the teacher and it should be "visually interesting".

That's no problem. I recognize that someone in an office somewhere has decided that updated bulletin boards help students learn. I'm sure that that's true. I'm sure I should focus on the bulletin board instead of on undiagnosed learning disabilities, troubled home lives, pressure to join gangs, spotty educational histories or inconsistent attendance. And I will attempt to do an assignment with my students that can be handed in by Thursday, so that I can grade it late into the night and get to school early on Friday to post it on my bulletin board.

Just a couple of itty-bitty hitches. First, I'm not going to have many students tomorrow. Whenever we have a week that starts on Wednesday, the students and their parents consider it optional. Second, I will probably be asked to cover a class tomorrow for a teacher who is not back from vacation yet. This will make photocopying an assignment.... tricky. Third, our photocopier will not be working tomorrow morning, and probably neither will the printer in the teachers' lounge. They weren't working when we left for break, and I doubt that they've gotten them fixed since.

So.... let me sum up. I need to have a project which can be completed in under an hour, that demonstrates mathematical ability and is visually interesting and can be assigned without giving kids a copy of anything written. I also need a rubric for the project that takes me less than a minute to complete so that I can grade 90 of them (assuming all the kids do the work) preferably in under 2 hours. It would be great, by the way, if the project pertained to sketching sine and cosine curves or solving systems of linear equations, because Regents exams are coming up January 22, and my students aren't ready for them.

I don't hate my job.