Wishing Upon a Star

July 2 -- Quicksand

I feel as if I'm trapped in quicksand and don't seem to be able to haul myself out.

Summer school started this week and I have a broad age group in each class, making for a difficult situation. Some of the kids are as young as nine and on their way into 4th grade (my nephew among them). While others are 13 or 14 and on their way into 8th grade.

Therein lies the problem.

Some of these older kids are in a "HIT" mode (aka hoods in training). They have behavior issues and are bad influences on the younger kids. They are trying to torment them and I think are managing to scare them.

If they had separated these classes according to age group I could handle it better. I'd still be pulling out my hair, but I could handle it differently. I can handle behavior issues quite easily when I'm with a given age group, but each group has a way they need to be handled.

It's complicated.

There's one kid who is very troubled (I understand that his mother is in prison for murder), but he's really doing a great job scaring the younger kids and disrupting the group. I may have to ask to have him removed.

This is not how I'd normally choose to deal with it. But as my sister-in-law pointed out, they did not hire me as a special ed teacher to deal with kids with "issues", nor are they paying me sufficiently to do that. All I'm supposed to do is teach art.

The job search has not started, and I need to get a move on.

I have started making lists, so here's a look:

• want something challenging

• involving creativity

• possibly that involves writing or editing

• dealing with adults more than kids.....though something like working for the education department of a museum, or symphony or the like would be a possibility

• opportunity to travel on occasion would be a plus

• something involving research/libriaries/ Internet/computers

a friend has added:

• you need to earn what you do now or more

• you need health benefits, 401K or other retirement savings, 2 week vac.

• you need to take your teacher pension out and invest wisely as it gets a very low interest rate

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