Nolites Te Bastardes Carborundorum

How is it that a real homebody like me has such a busy social calendar at the moment? I think its stressing me out more than work. I have a function this Saturday, 3 birthday parties to get to on next Saturday, a Christmas party plus numerable meetings on Monday night, the Ben Lee gig on Tuesday night, have got to get my sisters car to the shops on Wed night to get her CD player installed, my sisters 18th Bday party on the Thursday night... I think there is something on the Sunday night as well, and I believe i'm meant to go to a Linen party on the Friday night! (Linen party - when did we get this old!!???)

Work is stressful at the moment. In the next 3 days I have to grade approx. 100 exam papers, and then get the reports done in an equally short amount of time. How im meant to fit it in with my social life I dont know.

More stressful however is my concern for students. I know i'm a first year teacher, but you get attached (and not in a creepy PE teacher/pedophile kind of way) You do get taught to try and distance yourself but I find that hard to do. I got into this job to be a positive person in teenagers lives, but it can be a heavy burden.

One of my Year 10 students has just been suspended for 10 days. His 10 day suspension was for 'lighting fires' which sounds bad but all he was doing was lighting little pieces of paper and plastic on fire while out in the grounds at lunch. He's one of the smokers, so he always has a lighter handy. What smoker hasn't done that? However he also punched another kid on the weekend because that kid told on him.

I know he's done something wrong and needs to be punished. But the administration dislikes this kid and wants him gone. Which is why he's been suspended, and the other 3 girls lighting pieces of paper on fire haven't been punished at all.

I think i'm the only teacher who gets along with this kid and doesn't kick him to the Silent Room every lesson. He works well for me, and he even gets As (I teach him vegie-English) which he's thrilled about. You can see pride in his face when he does well and he doesn't often get told that he's a worthy human being. So I want him to sit my English exam because I know he can do well at it and for the rest of his life he has at least 1 report card which says he was a good student and that at least 1 teacher didn't think he was a drop kick who'd amount to nothing.

But when I asked the administration if he could sit the exam, I was told that when he had his meeting with the admin, his parents were there too, and while his mum was pleasant, his father was rude and unless the father apologises or does something to the like, the kid cannot sit his exams and the school won't offer him Job Pathways stuff which is all about helping kids find apprenticeships.

That fucking angers me and i'm even angrier at myself for not asking the administration why exactly the child was being punished for the sins of the father. Politics can be such bullshit.

My job is to teach. And I hate that politics can prevent my teaching a student who wants to learn.

Nolites Te Bastardes Carborundorum. Some days they do though. And that sucks.