( continues...) a great start to their work, it was pacey - I'm sure it could have been improved, but it was not a bad lesson. And I know that my kids are making progress. And I know that I'm continuing to improve as a teacher, and get on top of things. But I feel decidedly like I've been spanked, and not in a good way - even though my boss was very nice and kind and supportive about it, bless her. It still feels shitty.

...I just typed a long and only-interesting-to-primary-teachers thing about how I'm setting their spellings, and the spelling homework I'm sending, and I've deleted it, because really - you don't need to know. Suffice it to say that whereas last year my (more experienced) colleague was in charge of selecting all our spelling words, and just gave me the spellings, and there was no rhyme or reason to them that I could see, this year I've really felt on top of what I was doing and why. I've been linking spelling with handwriting and phonics, I've been sending home extra spelling games and literacy exercises tied in to the spelling words, and I've been seeing my least able kids progressing well. I agree that I should have not been giving my most able kids spellings for their year group - I should have set them harder words from the next year group. Okay. I take that on board - I was thinking 'consolidate, then move on', but okay.

But now I just have to stop all that, and use his stuff instead.

And, honestly, I'm arrogant enough (and unwarrantedly so, because he's a more experienced teacher than me, and he's very good) that I still think that what I'm doing with the spellings is better than what he's doing. I should have been selecting the words for my top group from a different word list right from the get-go, but other than that I think what I'm doing is bloody good.

...

...sorry. Dull dull dull. But - fuck. I'm frustrated.

And I'm probably trying to distract myself from the reality, which is that I do need to cater better to my most able students, and challenge them more. So I should shut the fuck up, because that's the fundamental thing - I can do better, and I should be doing better.

But, God. It just sucks, you know? To have all this "We have lost confidence in Miss Fay" thing, and feel like a failure, when I do know that they've had their knickers in a twist about her being in the 'wrong' year group since long before I was her teacher, and everyone else has told them they're mistaken.

t /tedious whining

Miss Fay, you're one of the least tedious whiners I've ever known. As is de rigeur it seems, for b.org teachers, you come across as conscientious, inventive, and sensitive. It's good that you're miffed about changing back to the colleague's words. But it looks like, even if you have no choice, that both you and your students benefitted in the meanwhile. Maybe the payoff will be somewhere else.

Got nothing on the other thing, though. Parents will persist in their -headedness. Looks like you've got school support-do you think that will extend to keeping her in your class, or is it better to let her go? That might be what it takes to get her father to understand--better that than bumping her up and having her fail (they bumped me up 1.5 years (don't ask--I still son't understand) and had to quickly drop me back down to 1 ahead (which was all undone anyway when we moved to London).

Fay, that is truly a sucky teaching situation. I cannot think of anything useful to say, other than that I'm sorry you are having to deal with this.

But good luck with the OKCupid listing.

Cheers, love - I know this is painfully mememe, but it did help to just spill it onto the screen. And, yes, I do have school support - my colleagues are being excellent about it. (The new deputy head, who is herself getting utterly undwarranted stick from some psychotic parents at the moment, gave me a little card and 3 scented candles this morning, bless her, to help me relax at home. Did I mention that I love my school?)

So - deep breath. Suck it in. Do better. Make them eat their fucking words.

At this point they have not removed their daughter from the school - and my boss, god love her, has drawn a very polite line in the sand (despite this being a fee-paying school) and is saying that she has faith in me, and that if the kid's in this school, she's in my class - and if she leaves my class and leaves the school, then so be it, and good luck with that.

Which is fucking awesome, and I really do appreciate. (The polar opposite of what I've seen in the other schools where I've worked.)

I keep reminding myself that in my career, obviously I'm going to have parents pissed off with me/their child's schooling. And that this is about as positive an instance as I'm going to get, and that I'm enormously lucky to have the support and confidence of my colleagues and my boss. So I need to chill the fuck out, and not take it to heart.

i've had people recast my sentences for me (part of my outsourced self-esteem) and looking at this as an example of support from your school rather than an assault from a parent is exactly the sort of thing they meant.

So much easier to have perspective on other people.

Man, I thought the baby was done crying. Poor tyke. ERs make me cry too, but I'm more of a sobber than a wailer.

Katie Holmes in Posh's haircut, in case there is anyone with haircut interest in this thread.

my boss, god love her, has drawn a very polite line in the sand (despite this being a fee-paying school) and is saying that she has faith in me, and that if the kid's in this school, she's in my class - and if she leaves my class and leaves the school, then so be it, and good luck with that.

That's excellent. Having a supportive boss can make a huge difference. My brain is still clanging over the cognitive dissonance between the situation I was in back in Baltimore and the place I am now.

Sign me up as another person who sucks at putting names and faces together. In situations where I've taught classes, I have taken to warning people ahead of time that I SUCK at the face-to-name thing, and that I am likely to have to ask their names several times over.

So, I'd like to thank vw for all she has shared with us regarding radical acceptance because I swear it is the only thing keeping me from totally losing my shit over the fact that after 6 7 weeks, my car is still not fixed.

That, and as my mom says, if it can be fixed with money, and you have the money, it's not that bad. And yeah, there are much worse things than paying for a rental car, but I want my own. car. back. NOW!

(Car was supposed to be ready tomorrow, but I just know it won't be and I'm trying to get mentally prepared for that so it doesn't ruin my weekend. Car accident was Sept 19th.)

Oh, Fay, what an ick situation.

I'm terrible at names, and I'm being reaffirmed in that with the tutoring I've been doing. When I run into a student outside of session (when I don't have my sign-up sheet with me), I can place that he/she is a is a tutoring student, but I can rarely remember his/her name.

So, I'd like to thank vw for all she has shared with us regarding radical acceptance because I swear it is the only thing keeping me from totally losing my shit over the fact that after 6 7 weeks, my car is still not fixed.

Oh, honey. That is awful. I'm glad radical acceptance is helping, but gonna still validate what an awful situation that is.

Thanks - I was just laying (lying?) in bed this morning thinking about how angry the whole thing makes me and then I was angry that something so beyond my control was taking up even more of my time/energy/emotion well-being. That's when all the board conversations about radical acceptance popped into my mind.