Down to 4 week now

There is a line from a movie that particularly made sense today.  The line comes from the movie Batman Begins.  The truth about the movie is that it has some very profound thoughts mixed around with a lot of other things.  The line comes from Ras al goul (sp) and says something like this: “Criminals rely on society’s forgiveness of crimes.”  Now granted this line in my analogy isn’t talking about criminals the same context that the movie was used, but the thought is still the same.  Students rely on the forgiveness of administrations for punishment.  As I’ve been teaching this  year I’ve seen one thing after another that has proved that in some cases the teachers and in others the administration slips up in the punishment of students.  Both teachers and administration get tired of punishing the same problem with the same punishment and that is where students tend to see that they can continue doing what they are going to do.  I think this might be coming to light just because of the fact that the school year is nearly over and we are all tired, teachers, students, and administration.  The other part is the fact that here, most all of us are going to be going home in the next 2 months, teachers and administration alike.

This whole ranting came to be because of the HS teacher that is leaving today decided that she didn’t care what she did today, so let students stay in her classroom even when the class period was over.  When I asked the administration if they wanted more names of students that didn’t arrive at classes because of being in that particular teacher’s classroom they said, “There are already so many students on that list.”  Yes, I know there probably are, but where is our consistency?   

I know I’m a math teacher, but I didn’t realize until yesterday that 4 comes before 5.  I’ve been counting down until I get to come home.  I guess maybe it has been so long in coming that now that it's here, I can’t quite believe that it's here.  Now that there is only a month of school left and only a few days more than that until I come home, I’m realizing that my time is limited.  I guess that realization comes with sadness and happiness.  Don’t worry, I will be totally psyched when I climb the stairs from the tarmac to the airplane, (yes, you walk across the tarmac to get on the plane here) but I have to admit now that I’ll have some sadness as well.  I’m not sure the sadness will come right away, I have this feeling that it will come when I have some time to think about it in my elongated layover in HI.  That is where it will finally hit me that I’m done, when I have time to think.  Or if it doesn’t happen then, it might not happen until I have some alone time sometime in the summer.  I don’t know when it will come along, but it will.  I have some good news though; one of my senior students might be attending Union in the fall, so I might have a slight reminder of what it was like with him there.  I’m really hoping he gets accepted.