hard day in the classroom (teaching)

This afternoon, someone made fun of the fact that I am in bed by 9:00 each night. He said that I am missing life because I am in bed so early. I told him that he needs to come into my classroom for the day and see if he is standing after 8:30. But, I think that we both might be right. I have taken a job that does not allow me much space for a personal life. Ms. Frizzle, a fellow teacher blogger, talked about the injustice of teachers shouldering a heft portion of society's responsibility to children in a recent post. It made me think about the responsibility I feel to my students and its tangential relationship to my level of exhaustion.

In the hours after lunch, I was overwhelmed by the life my students have. They are six and they are so tough. Well, most of them are tough. I have had spitters, kids who shake others, cursers, and a child who thought that my response to an eraser theft was because of the color of her skin. How do children start this so early? I don't want to become someone who is not treating children with gentleness and the respect they should be showing one another. However, I need to get things in check in my classroom. There is something going on in my classroom. I'm trying not to hold myself responsible for everything. My coteacher has taught for 19 years and she said they are a needy bunch. But, I am falling into the trap of thinking I am not doing enough, not prepared enough, not understanding enough, something...I think that blambing myself rather than something much larger than me is an easier. I can be fixed. I can learn new things. I can stay longer. The problems of living in the projects, being cared for by babysitters until 9 at night, and growing up in an illiterate home are much more difficult to fix.

Now, it's off to a paper for my class on applied behavior analysis. What a day.