I’ve officially been in middle school education for 9 weeks (11 weeks, if we count those first two weeks of teacher/para onboarding).

Y’all. Texas education is a MESS. It’s insane how little we know until we’re actually in the thick of it. My god, we have got to get Gina elected. Students can’t take another term of Abbott’s bullshit policies and nonsense.

I’ve never seen such little engagement in classrooms. But there really isn’t any space for it. Teachers are being forced to ‘teach to the test’ and it’s killing all sense of creativity, drive, and whimsy in teachers AND children.

I’m in the reading and language arts department and it’s profoundly fucked.

Every single day is another lame reading assignment with some weird essay requirement, all in the name of ‘prepping for the 9 weeks exam’. It SUCKS. Kids hate it. Most teachers hate teaching it. Kids don’t want to read (but there’s nothing interesting or lengthy for them to get sucked into) or write (because there’s nothing interesting to write about).

When did we decide that spelling tests and learning parts of speech and vocab tests and book reports and creative writing were a waste of time?

Granted, I know nothing about the adolescent brain and how it processes information, so I’m sure there’s (maybe?) some good reasoning behind it, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head. These kids can’t spell for shit. Their handwriting is atrocious. They can’t type (get the goddamn technology out of these schools, PLEASE). They have no attention span. They want everything spoonfed to them. They think that if something is difficult, it’s traumatizing.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?

I remember when English class was so many people’s favorite class of the day, because it’s one of the few places we could let creativity reign supreme. Now, it’s practically a torture chamber for most kids.

I’ve been in this – and only as a para – for 9 weeks and I’m ready to burn it all down. I can’t even begin to imagine what seasoned, career educators are feeling. The pay is shit (I only make about $24000), the hours can feel brutal, kids’ behavior is horrifying. I can’t believe how little we value educators.

You can see, just driving through most major suburbs in DFW, exactly what school districts value. One ISD recently got a $60 MILLION upgrade to their football stadium. The starting salary for teachers is $62000 (paras – like me – are paid roughly $16/hr). Bruh. If you’ve got $60 MILLION to spend on a stadium, surely you can move some of that around and pay people a little more. My god. (blah blah blah money is allocated blah blah blah. I don’t care.)

It’s just disappointing to see.

And I honestly don’t know what I can do as just one person.

But I continue to come to work. I continue to be as excited as I can about the material. I continue to encourage the kids in the classrooms I get to work in.

Right now, I figure the best I can do is to keep showing up.