the art of saying no

you would think that by my age i would know how to say no. i am not volunteering to do anything from now until the middle of summer. my house is a disaster area, my lawn needs mowing, and the ironing is really, really piling up. so what brought all this on? i volunteered to make photo collages of the campus and students for leaving personnel. i volunteered to teach a girl how to drive a stick shift, i volunteered to sponsor the kids who wanted to make mother's day cards, i volunteered --sort of--to buy the gifts for the going away people. what was i thinking. my regular job entails checking classes and transcripts for students at the end of the year, making my own tests, and grading them, making sure the seniors have everything in place, and i have all the reglia....which reminds me, i volunteered to do the seniors weekend handout program. urggghhhh!

spring of farewells

the cliche is that spring is a time of new beginnings. it probably depends on the angle. for school it is the ending of many things--papers, books, exercises, grades, classes, and for some the end of being at this particular school. of course, the seniors will be going on as they should. but, we are also loosing an english teacher, a bible teacher, the cafeteria director--we lost the boys' dean in the middle of the year. it is a good thing or bad? probably some of each.
in public school teachers can stay on in places for years. my sister went back to a place where she had taught at least twenty-five years previously and there were still some of the same teachers. i know a few academy teachers who have stayed in one place for a very long time--one a science teacher which was a good thing, and the other an english teacher who comes with mixed reviews.
it is probably good that things do change else everyone and everything gets in a rut and the world goes forward while the rut diggers are not looking up from their work.

it is probably time to stop teaching people to follow the ruts.