I hate school

Satan's Arse, but my colleagues annoy me. One is a teacher new to this school, who doesn't seem to want to work with me on the grounds that she has no time to prepare a lesson with me. I have been here for over a year and a half. I have been to ten schools. I have worked with thirty-two teachers. She is the first one with this complaint.

This is one of those times when my job description becomes painfully obvious to naught but I - Assistant Language Teacher. It is my job to assist.

I understand that there are some teachers who have put themselves through a variety of gruelling ordeals to get where they are today, and will continue to do so now that they're there. The last thing they want is assistance from someone who hasn't taken their Nationally Approved teachers exam. The very nerve. The fact that I also speak, at a native level, the language they're spent most of their academic lives studying can't sit too well in terms of self esteem...especially when I correct their grammatical deficiencies...which can be tremendously satisfying...

Then there's one of the male teachers - a smug buffoon who seems to think that his charisma is an adequate substitute for a structured lesson and coherent plan. A year ago, I considered my self puny before what I thought to be greater ability, and associated scorn. Amazing how much an outside observer can change ones outlook on a situation. I thank you Joel.

We now come to the teacher responsible for the third grade lesson referred to in this post; a woman who might just be able to teach her way out of a wet paper bag if that wasn't such an apt metaphor for her classroom presence. That's without even going into her English skills - if you give your students false information, how can you expect them to pass a difficult exam? That aside, her lessons are either, in terms of target language, breathtakingly elaborate, or as substantial as a mummified tissue. Where is hope?