Loathing, unadulterated loathing

I hate this place...

In a recent edition of "Is it bad?" I said that I often think teachers are stupid and yet I am one. Today is one of those days where I think teachers are stupid. (I realize my artistic license to say this because I am a teacher and know how hard we work, but really some teachers just suck.) I have been proctoring the pinnacle of the fourth grade year- the NJ ASK 4- all week. This is the test provided by the state of NJ that shows the progress your students are making over the year (I will not rant and rave about how stupid this test is at this time, but rather save that for another day when it feels right.) Anyway, this is the fifth time I have given the NJ ASK and each year the people I work with same the exact same thing about it.

Here's what I hear every year

"It was fair"
"That was impossible."
"What were those test makers thinking?"
and my personal fave,
"Oh my god, we're all going to be pumping gas next year."


This week seriously brings out the worst in me. I think the entire month of March is like a giant stress test. I have been tested by the administration when they lost a paper I worked on for awhile and a new one was requested of me (still haven't done it, btw.) I have been tested by the license plate theif who attempted to gank my plates. I am currently being tested by the 16 inhabitants of 4W who are behind me at this moment doing puzzles because I can't bear to deal with them. But I am tested most each day from 11:40 am to 12:40 pm when I have to sit in the Teacher's Room and listen to the moronic orations of my colleagues. I swear some of them say "Dem" and "Doz" (as in "I want one of doz...")

I have to stop a moment because I swear one of my boy students just started belting out "Build Me Up Buttercup"- my personal karaoke favorite... funny stuff.

Teachers have the uncanny knack to remember exactly what they said a year before and spit it out again a year later. It's even more amazing that they dispell their knowledge on the lunch room audience every effin March and they pretend like no one has every said that the testing is stupid. Or that some kids won't pass this year. So seriously, if you are reading this and you are a teacher and you participate in the joy that is state mandated testing, write down exactly how you bitched this year on a piece of paper and next year go find yourself a thesaurus and mix it up- because no one wants to hear the same thing again. Think of me when you do this.