It's Preposterous!

Ha, I just like that word. And other words, such as flummoxed, bamboozled, and cummerbund.  But, back to my point.

Still no word from Broward County about whether I will get my old job back. Usually they wait until the last dying moment, so no surprise there. Money suddenly "appears," seemingly out of nowhere, and they call the laid-off teachers and make offers. Of course, they fail to apologize for the loss of sleep, stress, strained marriages, and other physical and psychological problems caused by the whole mess. As for my marriage, of course it's been strained. Right now, my husband has gone to another state to find work. We couldn't both sit here waiting for the hand of god, or someone, to help us out. There is no work in South Florida, people. Don't come here. Yes it's beautiful, yes, there is a great beach and palm trees...but unless you like climbing those trees to hack down your own coconuts in the face of starvation, it's not a great place to come looking for a life right now.

Do I sound bitter? I really, truly thought that once I got my job teaching art at a highschool, my LONG career quest  would be over and I would stay out the rest of my working days. It's not even that my quest for a career was long, it's that my quest for a JOB was very very long. I always wanted this career, but it took 15 years to get the job.

Well, happy to say that my feelers are out and a certain Prep-school will be interviewing me next week to join their Fine Art department in the Digital Photography and Media capacity. If I go there, Broward will have lost one of it's finest. But as I stated before, all you need to keep your job in Broward County is a hire date and a pulse, you don't need any actual skills in the area you will be teaching. That's thanks to our "wonderful" union.

Working with positive Affirmations.

I got an app that features list of rotating affirmations -475 of them! Did you know you could say that many positive things to yourself? Most people spend all day cutting themselves apart, saying "I should've, could have, wish I had..." etc. I am experimenting with only saying positive things to myself. So far its been great. My favorite one is "I'm ok." Over and over, since I am prone to irrational anxiety. It helps.

it matters not what I do for kids....

Oh the disappointments involved with being a public school teacher in Florida. On Monday morning I got the phonecall. Summarily laid-off due to seniority and lack of funds.

It seems the Longer I am employed, the lower my seniority gets, since they keep chopping off the feet of the arts totem pole. My Principal and several others have come up to bat for me, I even spoke with the head of the district arts dept, who said "Gee, you have a lot of fans rooting for you!" I told her, of course I do, I'm nice, the kids like me, and I do a good job. Duh.(not that last part.)

But in public school overrun by a useless union, it doesn't matter what my skills or effectiveness are-it only matters that I was hired on 2/20/08. It is very sad, and I hope somehow the word gets out to parents when an underqualified randomly selected person with more seniority is attempting to teach my digital and AP classes next year. How can we fix public education? It's the worst run business I have ever experienced, where skills have nothing to do with your job or compensation.