It’s Friday morning – TGIF and we’ve made it through the first week back to school! My body finally adjusting to getting up at “to milk the cows o’clock” in the morning, I’ve been able to reduce my caffeine intake by half since the beginning of this week. Lexi’s made a new friend at her new school and has managed to keep track of her school uniform shirt with minimal assistance from me, so I’m putting this week into the Groenevelt’s “win” column. I’d love to say my story ends here. Mother and child, happy to have finished the first week of school, get their nails painted and cuticles cut until they bleed to celebrate. I could but that would be a BIG FAT LIE. LIE. LIE. LIE.
Because if making a new friend and not losing your shirt were enough to call the start of a new school year a success, Paris Hilton would be her school’s valedictorian.
Lexi isn’t ready to blow horns and hang streamers in celebration of the new school year just yet. Lexi got a jump on the school year and has already sniffed-out, and identified, the teacher she’ll be grooming to hate this year. Maybe not so surprising is that this teacher can speak English, unlike many of her Mexican colleages, and Lexi can actually understand the inane things this teacher is saying to the other kids. Her number one complaint about this teacher? She makes a fist, curling her bicep and air pumping it, finishing off the routine punching her fists together like a heavy weight boxer before the start of each round, to the kids when they “forget” to listen.
And I’m like, are we doing this again? Have we found another nut case half-way across the globe from where we’d left the last? Of course there’ve been teachers in Lexi’s brief academic career I’d could have had stand up in my wedding I like them so much. But then there were those bad ass apple teachers I suspect padded their resumes to include misstatements like: “love children, can read and I have a really positive attitude”. Prime example: my daughter’s 4th grade teacher. She and I did not see eye to eye, as in I thought she was an immature, illiterate ass, and she did not. A woman who inserted photos of her 7 month old daughter into Power Point slide shows she’d display at teacher conferences.
“Sit down Mr. and Mrs. Groenevelt, let me tell you about my little “so-and-so” and how she’s eating solids, oh and then there’s my ex-husband and let me tell you about him – again.”
To which I’m thinking:
“No thanks, my breasts are exploding with my youngest daughter’s dinner, so if you could just get on with Lexi’s academic performance, my baby and my boobs would be much appreciative.”
The rub is, I’m trying to raise my kid to understand that if she doesn’t buckle down, God damn-it, and get herself an education, she’s gonna be wearing a paper hat for the rest of her life, that or pushing around a mop doing hard labor. This thought terrifies the living shit out of me because a) she skews as a big spender and I don’t want to be financially responsible for her anything Apple – Mac consumerism and b) she’s been known to lay face down on the dining room floor mid-table clearing because how can we expect her to clear off the entire table consisting of salad plates. I just don’t think this is a girl with an aptitude for hard labor. Believe me, living in Mexico these past few months has opened my stinging eyes to what hard labor really looks like – in a throwing my arms over my face tell me when it’s safe to look again kind of way. Education is a privilege y’all! I keep telling Lexi that. I know, what better way to get something through to your kid then to tell them! No, not really, I’m all sarcasm here.
Which is why I believe the teaching profession is good and ready for a RANT IN ALL CAPITOL LETTERS. However, it’s hard on the eyes to read in all CAPS, so for the sake of visual ease, I’ll restrain myself. But just know, I’m doing so with your comfort in mind. Because if I were to rant in all CAPS it would go something like this:
All CAP rant to the Teacher’s Union of America:
It’s time to weed out your sucky teachers, if not for the sake of our children’s education (America’s future), then for your other due paying members that actually give a shit about their profession and the kids they teach. I’m not just talking about the likes of my distant relative Mary Kay Letourneau and the other criminal elements, but the teachers who can’t conjugate verbs, run spell check, or the ones who tell you they went to school up in Texas when they’re standing in Wisconsin.
I also think it’s time that teachers who fail the entire class, tip-over messy desks, and call kids stupid, be forcibly removed – tenered or not. Then there are the teachers who give a crap about whether or not my kid has an orange folder for her Earth Science subject. The orange folder that Office Depot is out of and the orange folder my kid swears she’d better have by Monday or she’ll get yelled at like Adam who didn’t by the right sized Crayola box. I’d like you to hang your head in shame. Thanks to you and your anal retentive need to control all things color coded, that weekend was spent in the aisles of multiple office supply stores. It’s time to get your head out of your ass and worry about more important things like whether my kid can do long division.
Because I have to raise my kid to respect the teachers that your union supports, I’d like to do so whole heartedly and stop telling her just to ignore the sexist comments made by your teachers who approach education with their own personal motto: I wanted to coach soccer therefore I got this stupid ass teaching job.
Best regards,
Long Suffering Mom
Since this rant will probably go unanswered, I’ll just keep my chin up and continue cheering on Lexi. Something like, “Hey Lexi, I know your teacher may have stopped taking her meds, but you still have to study really hard and get a good education.” Or, “I know your teacher spent 3rd period on her cell phone with her divorce attorney sitting at her desk, but how did your spelling test go?” I need Lexi to keep plugging along, with or without the support of the Teacher’s Union, because home-schooling is about as much of an alternative as driving without the use of my middle finger.
