The Agony and the Ecstasy

The beginning of June is both jubilant and painful when you're a teacher. Here's the jubilation part: summer is coming! more free time, sleeping in, time for focusing on staying healthy and relaxing. The painful part: the final rush of grading papers, report cards, updating every student's file, organizing, filing, and cleaning your classroom. To top that off, I've been dealt the final pink slip. Oh sure, they can rescind at any time. But that's the problem..."at any time". I head into summer vacation not knowing if I will have a job in August.

Ironically, I got an invitation to lead some trainings over the summer. I said, "Sure, I'll do it, but I'm officially NOT an employee after June 30, so..."

I'm trying not to sweat it - trying not to feel like it's personal. I know, logically that it's got nothing to do with me. Funny. It OUGHT to! It ought to have everything to do with me. This job bases most everything on your seniority. You have to do something pretty awful to actually get fired from teaching. They can't just get rid of you because you're a bad teacher. Because of tenure, it's much more complicated than that. Well, I have tenure, and I'm a damn good teacher, but my neck is still strategically placed on the chopping block.

If I go out, I wanna go out with guns blazing.(see picture) I don't exactly know what that would mean, though. I just love the end scene of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Unfortunately I don't have a place to play that scene out. As a teacher, I have to maintain the upstanding citizen facade...so, I can't scream obscenities when they take my classroom key or trash the district office on my way out of town. But, I could run down the hallway with staplers blazin' in each hand. Hmmm...I'll let you know how it all plays out.