This morning I’m tired.

I’m tired of incompetence, malfeasance, and foolishness. I’m tired of administrators who are so afraid of lawsuits that they make bad decisions and do harm to the very school they are supposedly trying to protect. I’m tired of those same administrators being so slavishly devoted to conformity and universality of results that they take away everything that is good about teaching and learning, and about school. I’m tired of students who are more willing to fail than try to learn, who take every opportunity to ask for a free day, who say, “Why don’t we just do nothing today?” Who say “I don’t know how to do that” when they do, just because if they don’t know how then they won’t be asked to try, and they can sit and stew in their own torpor, staring at anything even vaguely stimulating. I watched four students watch one student spin a quarter on the desk for half a period. Just watching him. None of them doing the work they were supposed to be doing. I mean, I was a lazy student, sure, but — seriously?

I’m tired of parents who expect teachers to parent their children, and of teachers who are willing to do it. I’m tired of parents, and teachers, who focus on the signs and symbols of learning rather than on the actual thing itself. I’m tired of telling students that they’ll need this in the future, and that their boss won’t put up with the same crap that I put up with, as if everything I do is designed only to train students to be good employees.

I’m tired of doing things designed only to train students to be good employees.

I’m tired of being a good employee. I’m tired of teachers who obey inane rules rather than rock the boat, and I’m very tired of being one of those teachers. I’m tired of being cautious, and tired of being afraid, when I should be respected  and proud. I’m tired of wasting my time on things that don’t really need to happen, and of falling behind on the things that really do need to happen. I’m tired of trying to find time for myself in between the time I spend on others.

I’m tired of making the same old complaints and accusations.

I’m tired of being tired.

Boy, thank God it’s Friday, right?