Disheartened

It is holy week, and I need everything to find the strength to be holy. Yesterday and today, as I have worked with my students to build the understand of the work in class ( a novel portfolio ) they received report cards and instantly jumped on a "complaint" list about me! I didn't see the list, but it greatly hurt me when I learned of it; as I have felt defeated most of the year.
I know I am doing the right thing, I know I have the safety net of the Lord, and I keep wondering what message it is sending? Every day I wonder if I'm headed to the right place. Every day, at the end of the day, I'm glad I'm going home. Every morning I wake up, not wanting to go.

I have the support of those around me, and the Lord's loving arms.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Hey, Here is a great link, and listen to Sir Ken Robinson. He is amazing, and he speaks about one of the biggest problems with Education in America. School Killing Creativity in Children.

BOYS!

More to add....one of the freshman girls had been touched and poked by three boys, who targeted her breasts, and her ribcage, and buttocks. The touching happened during a class on Friday, which was being supervised by a highly competent substitute, who was working closely with learning support students. By Monday, she confided in me, as she started to come to class and one of them was in her class. So, I, fully understanding her plight, directed her to the nurse, to the Student Assistance Team, and that got the ball rolling. By Wednesday, three boys were hauled to ISS, and these are boys not related to dropping their drawers in my presence, but more kids going after sexual thrills in a school setting. This is what I have been seeing in all the students; good, bad and in between. What next? I can't wait for this school year to turn a page.

Where Union Dues $ Goes?

Is this my next move? Yes, it may be. I have belonged to a teachers' union for over 20 years. I have benefited in salary and health care. But is this worth the immoral use of my dues money going to support sinful behavior that I, as a Catholic stand against - abortion, birth control, and homosexuality? Please go to this link to read about a brave woman, who is now in the middle of a court battle over how her compulsory dues money is spent.

Catholic Holy Week disregarded by School District

The District Calendar disgraces and disrespects the Holiest Days in the Christian Calendar! And it seems that no one cares. Here is the link the calendar, to which I am referring. If you note, the calendar begins telling the community that Easter break begins on Good Friday! To begin, that is highly ignorant. Easter begins on the vigil of Easter Sunday. Students and people in most businesses get normal Sundays off from work, so how could this day (part of the weekend, and Easter Sunday) still be considered an EASTER break from school? School is in session on Easter Monday, the second day of EASTER, and this calendar provides NO EASTER BREAK in 2009 for the community and school district where I work.

Christians are attacked by this practice of not acknowledging the Holiest Days of the Christian Celebration, and what it means to be a Christian. As a Catholic, I am keenly aware of this affront, yet unable and powerless to do anything, except take a personal day, or sick day to have the time to pray, and practice my faith.

Too Busy to stop the Madness

Busy, Busy, Busy. I am at the wire, trying to get my grades completed before the quarterly grades are due at the office. I have many students who did very little this grading cycle and hardly paid any attention to what we have done all year. They do not appreciate all the work I do for them. They are still lying, deceiving their parents, deceptively keeping total truth from their parents about their classroom performance.

I am disgusted by the behavior of the boys. One individual finally was nailed for what several of them had been doing. They were taking turns, dropping their pants below the buttocks, and bending over or showing their rears to the class, but mostly directed at me. I was appalled. This is sexual harassment, and I have no more cheeks to turn. I don't know how much more of this garbage I am expected to take. I do not want to see any of these students in my classroom again. They will get no high marks from me, nor recommendations to any organizations of honor, that require integrity. That is my only recourse. I am finished with them. Even the "so called good" students are not always good. They are mouthy, pushy, insistent, sassy, and also disrespectful.

I am strongly looking forward to Easter, and I only have Good Friday off. I am back to school on Easter Monday. The glorious summer cannot come soon enough! A bit more suffering of Lent to go through and my Lord beside me all the way. He is the only way I survive.

Miss You

I miss a parishioner who left our parish two years ago. He was, and still is an inspiration to me. He was a graduate of the only all boy's secondary Parochial school in our Diocese, and signed up for the war, and fought in Vietnam. He was lucky to return, but spent the next few years of his life, should I say? - thrill-seeking. He was numb from war, lived in Texas, a state he hated for the weather, and it was so far from home; married for looks, partied, swung, drugged, and had two boys. His wonderful mother helped him raise the boys, when he returned to PA, with an infant and a three year old, divorced from a wife who was sleeping with someone else.

He remained single, but not fulfilled for the next 20 years or so. I wish that I had met him, when I dreamed about "my" soldier in Vietnam, or when I was in college, and older. As a child, I sat up in my tree, and faced east, looking upon the higher hills of the next county. Amazing that this was toward his camp home, where he lives now. My Aunt and Uncle rented a place, he almost bought, in the nearby town. It was amazing how close our paths came to crossing, and how much I "loved" and wanted to see him, and didn't yet know who he was- nor had I known his name until many years later.

Funny how things work out, we both attended St. Anthony's. This saint is the finder of those things that are "lost." I wasn't lost, but he may have been. When we locked eyes, we were instantly drawn together, by some unseen force, for some unknown reason. I knew immediately, that I was not only attracted, but consumed. I wanted to know him, but being married myself, I didn't want to give him the wrong impression. It was impossible for me to not show how much I loved him, as a brother, and a friend. He was quickly married to a girl, young enough to be his own daughter, and this union turned out to be a total financial disaster, and a complete disaster in love. It broke my heart, because I knew that he sought to be married, and wanted to be married, but had always looked in all the wrong places for that love and marriage he deserved. He once joked that in comparison, he didn't come close to my 20 years of marriage, with his two - amounting to less than 5 years. I was saddened. I couldn't reach out and fix what he needed. I couldn't help what he longed for. We spent a few years getting to know one another, and growing in our faith.

Today, it has been quite some time, nearly 2 years since I have seen him at church. I always joked that he was my "Sunday" date. I was able to touch his hand, and lean toward him. I was so overjoyed to see him for a short time in February that I hugged him twice in the rain! The day was on his parent's anniversary, and I think that was another coincidence in our lives, and how we bump into one another, unannounced, and don't see one another for many years. I thought about him today, on this fourth Sunday of Lent.

I write him at Christmas, and he returns the favor. I send him a card to let him know how wonderful he is, and how much I think of him, and that I believe him to be special in a way I cannot explain.

A friend loves forever; He is my friend.