Trying to be all things to everyone

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

What do you not get enough credit for?

This is kind of a timely one, as I just got not-too friendly email from X2 today.

At the risk of making this just sound like a rant, I feel that I don’t get enough credit for trying to be all the things I try to be every day.

I try to be the good son, visiting my mother every day while she’s in an assisted living center. I try to be the good father, staying in contact spending time with, and providing support for both of my children. I try to be the loyal, hard-working employee. Over the last few weeks, I’ve probably put more time and energy and motivation into my teaching that I have in the last few years. Finally, I think I don’t get enough credit for just being a good guy.

Just Another Spoke on the Wheel

Detroit, more than any other school district I’ve taught in, taught me how utterly expendable I am. They could decide to “remove my contract” and bring some younger, cheaper teacher to whom they could pay considerably less money

Although I do like the school I’m currently teaching at, I’m no longer under any false notions that I’m set with my job. I know that anytime, any day, I can be told that my contract will not be renewed for the next school year.

It sucks because I’m probably having more fun at my current school than I had last year. I think things are going pretty well for me; however my own work history has taught me to not take anything for granted; nor assume that any job is a sure thing for next year.

Chris Rock was right

I get it. I understand. With guys it’s different. We don’t get our flowers, either figuratively or literally. The expectation for men in the world is that they are to be providers. That is it. The moment they do not provide either for their employers, their partners, or their children. In one of his stand-up specials, Chris Rock once said “only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. Men are love for what they provide.“ He was not wrong. That’s one of the double standards that makes both genders treated unfairly.

Feeling Tony Soprano

This past September, mother went into the hospital. For what seem to be a few months, she kept repeating the cycle of going from the hospital, to a short, stay rehab center, to her assisted living center, and back again. Things seem to finally calm down a bit in the last few months, is mother’s health pretty much is what it is. I talked about it before. She’s dealing with COPD. She has arthritis throughout her body so she essentially bedridden. When people were trying to get her to do physical therapy, she refused. At this point, I am assuming that she will never walk again.

About two months ago, she got a very bad urinary track infection. She ended up in the hospital, and I’m fairly certain that her body was starting to go into sepsis. In fact, there was one weekend where I really thought we were going to lose her. Thankfully, her health has gotten better since then. But since that time, I think I’ve almost felt guilty about that spending enough time with her or visiting her, and I’m trying to do more than I realistically can do. For her, it’s not enough. Unfortunately, at these kind of moments, I can sympathize with Tony soprano in early episode episodes of The Sopranos, when he was dealing with his elderly mother‘s ailing health. No matter what Tony did on that show, it wasn’t enough for his mom.

All workers are expendable

Perhaps the toughest thing for me to come to grips with as a teacher has been how expendable I truly am I my administrators’ eyes.

When I taught in South Carolina, I knew things were not gong well. in hindsight, I should have seen the proverbial writing on the wall. Looking back, I think I did; but I wasn’t ready to accept reality at that point.

While I was teaching Detroit, I knew that my students test scores weren’t great. But I also knew that during the five years I was at my middle school, we had gotten a new principal, one who is originally in a provisional status. I was one of the teachers who definitely Showed her my support.

When the Covid lockdowns came, I was one of the teachers who was teaching online every day. When the time came for a small normal for us to return to the classrooms, I was on a short list of teachers who were willing to do that. I thought that in a lot of ways, I could “earn my stripes“. To put it in a monsters parlor, I guess I thought I was “made“.

Some budget cuts were made, so system principles were forced to return to the classroom, and I end up becoming a casualty of former vice principal who ended up going back to the classroom

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