Ms. Roedner in the Big Easy: New Baby!!

Well, my baby barks instead of cries, but she's still my baby. Zoey, a two year old greyhound came to live with me on Sunday. She is the sweetest little girl, I am totally in love! She follows me around the apartment and walks, literally, right next to me when we go out. She doesn't actually bark really, she just cries and whines a lot when I leave. That part always makes me sad, but the adoption folks said after about a week or so she would be better. Zoey's favorite stuffed animal is a loon or duck or something that squeaks, she walks around (following me) squeaking it. It's too adorable to find the noise annoying. Some pictures are below (along with pictures from when Anthony came to visit, since I realized I never put those up).

Had a nice dinner last night with an Admissions rep from GW who was down in New Orleans on a recruiting trip (not at my high school, of course). I had volunteered when I got down here to do admissions interviews, represent GW at college fairs and events, etc., so I got to talk GW with a fellow alum. It was nice to think of something other than TFA and teaching, though I am homesick (school-sick?) for GW!!

My sweet Zoey aside, things have sort of been up and down the past week or two. School has been a little better than the last blog post, but not much. I’m so frustrated putting so much care and energy into kids who don’t care. It’s like it doesn’t matter to them in the least if they succeed or not. Makes it hard for me to keep making it such a priority, when I get little to no response from most kids, and disrespect from more than a few. I’m just so tired of the attitudes and crap that I get from kids, I give so much credit to teachers who do this their whole lives, I don’t know if I can stand two years.

One of the boys in my hellish third period class, R, is one of the worst (though as luck would have it most of my biggest problems are in third period). He has no respect for women – including me – and has no problem telling me that. He refuses to say good morning when I greet my kids at the door, does no work in class, walks out of class now when he doesn’t feel like being there, and yesterday when I was (again) telling him to pay attention and do his work, his response was “look dog, I’m doing work.” First of all, there was no work in front of him, he didn’t even have a pencil. Second, how could anyone imagine calling someone, let alone a teacher, a dog? I thought I would strangle him right then and there, but he just left, so the class moved on. His dean is going to kick him out of school until a guardian comes in for a conference – what worries me though is once that happens, I feel like he will be even worse to me. A couple of his other teachers, older men, are having similar but less severe issues with him, so I think I might ask one of them to come to this conference as well. If R doesn’t respect women, I need someone to help enforce this who he may respect.

On the upside, B, a girl in my third period class who I have had issues with in the past, made my day yesterday after this whole exchange with R. At first B had given me a lot of attitude and was just impossible, after I called her Mom, things seemed to improve dramatically. She still has days where she’s rude or doesn’t want to work, but it’s much less than it was before. So I wrote her a note saying how much she’s improved and how much I appreciate it and how it’s great having her in class. I gave it to her after a rant about the reason kids drop out of school is because teachers make them do too much – her response to my note? “Now, THIS makes me want to stay in school!” Halleluiah! I hope the personal notes have a similar impact on some other kids. And I hope she really stays in school. Now for the other 89…