I don't even know where to begin. I know where to end: I am okay.Not to be a broken record, but I hate my job. (Love my work, hate my job.) Listen, I know I am not a coal miner or God knows what other kind of worker that people would generally not want to be. I only work in a place where your soul is sucked out of you every day in little pieces, but yet you are expected to be devoted to the place and to give your all and more, full-time. It's wearing. It's wearing me out.
I'm still not comfortable putting any real details here, for obvious reasons, I guess, but today's crap hit a new level. I've been saying for some time (and I've probably said it here) that none of the crap is personal because that would mean that they see us as persons. Rather, we are paper clips to them, interchangable, meaningless, insignificant office supplies. I still think this is true, administratively speaking. It seems that today, possibly, another teacher, whose own job has been in up-and-down peril, went on a rant and said to the principal, that, among other things, how can he justify having two librarians when neither one of them ever even does anything? And, as it turns out, this is the commonly held belief by all the administrators in the school as well as the secretaries in the office.
Well. This one is personal, doncha think? I can't confront anyone yet because of the way I heard it, but this is infuriating. I was just steaming all afternoon once I heard this, but I got much calmer once I got home, and I'm okay now. Pissed off, but okay. Not that I think this has any actual value, but jeez, I have two fucking master's degrees, and the secretaries think I don't do anything? And that counts for something?
Right now, I would like to hop into my time machine and go back to 1971 and major in anything other than education. Which is all I ever wanted to do since I was 8 years old. And how can I watch as my child becomes a teacher? I know what's down the line for her in 30 years.
This crap is part and parcel of teaching; it is the kind of shit that makes teachers burn out, as I said yesterday. The whole librarian thing is another story. I have dealt with this crap since student teaching, that librarians don't actually do anything. The fact is that librarians generally enjoy their work, and I happen to be good at it, so I guess if people don't see you miserable and struggling in your job, they assume you're not actually working. When you're in a high school, at least a big one like mine, it's generally true that teachers have stereotyped ideas about each other depending on the subject you teach. Math teachers are often condescending to others, especially English teachers, because they buy into society's take that if you're good at math, then you're smart, and vice-versa. English teachers, and teachers of other academic subjects, often look down on teachers of non-academics, like business or foods. Teachers of physics and chemistry -- all men in my school -- are notoriously condescending to women, even women in their own department who teach environmental science or biology. Famously, everyone seems to think that gym teachers are dumb. And librarians, I think because we are interdisciplinary and can't be easily pigeonholed, are just sitting there all day, in my case, eight hours a day, 180 days a year, for more than 29 years, and doing nothing. Nothing at all.
So how do I feel knowing that I have given my all to this school? That I spent 15 years as the junior class advisor, staying there sometimes until 10 at night to get the prom ready, or the pep rally decorations? That I spend my own money each year to keep the school website going? That I came back two weeks early after my brain surgery because of a crisis and I wanted to be there for the kids I knew who were going through it?
I feel like a sucker. Ain't gonna be a sucker no more.
