$20 St. Sucksday Budget Extension - What Should I Buy?

[ElectricPaladin]

We ended up going with sushi boat and bottle of sake. It worked nicely .

And, oh man, do you know what they did to me? I've got teachers in the audience, so I'll explain.

We lost two of our teachers (well, 1.8) to unusually low enrollment. As a result, they had to turn every schedule upside down. Unfortunately, what they communicated to us was that there would be "a few" "minor" schedule changes for "some" students. Nope, they barely left a handful of students in the same class they'd started out in.

If you're not a teacher, I'll explain. A good portion of my job is creating and maintaining a positive classroom culture. The class culture is like a bank account. You can make withdrawals - pushing the kids, making them anxious or screwing up and getting negative with them - and you must make the occasional deposit - fun time, one-on-one interaction, in-jokes - if you expect the class to stay solvent. The class culture is also kind of like an animal, in that it can survive the removal of some tissue (students) and still survive.

With this much change, however, my class culture just went up in an economic crash. They took it out back and shot it. It's like starting over on the first day of school. If I'd known it was going to be this bad, I could have prepared for it, but that would have taken communication from my principal, and this is the man who didn't warn us we were all getting layoff notices (even the ones who were going to get to stay) last year.

Furthermore, I knew that the other science teacher had some... classroom management issues. This wasn't shaping up to be his year, and he was never great at discipline. What I didn't know instead of "classroom management issues" I should have said "no classroom management system to speak of." His kids, my new students, had no basis for behavior. They expected carte blanche do do whatever they wanted.

Man, it was exhausting. I thought I'd already passed the part of the year where I have to be a disciplinarian jerkface - to establish myself - and started the part where the job begins to be fun. And with kids who have just experienced an upheaval, it's going to take even longer.

[Pendragon38]

I would save up and get a thunder fire cannon for your B.R.army and if that can't help,save up and take you and the miss out

[ragnarcissist]

just buy a 20 of some righteous chron and work on what u have till u get a big boy job

: )

[Chris Copeland]

...work on what u have till u get a big boy job

Wow. What a sh!tty comment to make to a man who has dedicated himself to training the young minds of our nation!

Cope

[Kyban]

just buy a 20 of some righteous chron and work on what u have till u get a big boy job

: )

Ouch, you might want to clarify that statement. It sounds like you're trying to say teaching isn't a real job...

[ragnarcissist]

my b, im guilty of not reading anything past the first post...... as an often broke college student, i was merely saying what i usually do when i want to feed the plastic crack bug, but am unable to do so due to lack of cash... i have nothing but the highest respect for teachers, apologies please.

[Chris Copeland]

All good in the hood... cheers...