Blog everyday in May: Rant about something...

My rant about something, happens to be a co-worker that drives me absolutely crazy! Just when I think she has made the turn to be a nice person she does something rude, crazy, or just plain mean. Here is an example from Monday:

She walks into the Cafeteria where we are serving dinner to our students, she notices that a boy and girl are what I would call cat fighting, hitting hands with each other. They were obviously flirting and being silly. She asked them to stop, they didn't listen, I think partly because they have NEVER seen her before. She only comes to after school events when they have free food. They continue to not listen, which I spoke with them about later is in the day, that this is disrespectful behavior and frustrating to adults.

My co-worker then says to the child, "Are you retarded?" He doesn't respond. So she asks it another way, "Why are you acting retarded?" and then a third time. "Do you realize you are being retarded?" I don't know about you but this is like the WORST word you can call a child, especially, my co-worker didn't know this but I do, he has a mentally challenged sibling. He came to my office balling his eyes out, stating, "I know I wasn't listening but that doesn't make me retarded!" This is when I became irate, my assistant had to tell me to calm down and I hadn't said anything my face was BRIGHT RED! 

In fear of loosing my own job because what I wanted to say to her was a string of profanities and that same question to her with profanity, I figured the best course of action was to call my principal, who luckily dealt with the situation. I was way too angry. I am one of those teachers where my students are my children, you mess with them, you mess with me and I will take you down! 

We have a huge Special Ed program at my Middle School and we have an after-school program for them. I am very passionate about having them involved in our program, the "general ed" student population getting to know them. I find our gen ed students the majority of them don't understand kids with special needs or how to handle them when they are acting "different" than they are, so this has been an eye opening experience for them. The students who would normally become behavior problems are blossoming and helping these students. It is truly a beautiful thing to watch!!

So the moral of the story, some people are never going to "get it". I have to learn to let them not get to me, this may take my entire lifetime to happen!

Check out their webpage R-Word

Until next time...