Think, Please?

I had a somewhat sizable meltdown yesterday with my last class. Although it had a little to do with the fact that I was tired, and my ears were hurting...AGAIN from that same damn ear infection....it had a lot more to do with the fact that those children wanted me to hand them the answers to the study guide over The Crucible.

After 20 minutes of:

"Miss. Can you tell me what page the answer to #blah blah is on?" and
"This is hard!"
"Miss. Is the answer *insert-wildass-guess-to-half-read-question-here* ?"
"No? Well, how about *insert-2nd-in-endless-series-of-wildass-guesses* "
"No? Are you sure? Well....what page is it on?"

I had HAD it.

I launched into a monologue that would have made my mother proud.

The Sparknotes version...

"You need to think past recall/recognition answers. Sometimes the answers are going to have to come from your brain. When you get to Senior English, they are NOT going to hold your hand. Trust me. I've had a continuous stream of seniors in my room over the past 3 weeks begging for my help on their Senior Theme. Your Senior teacher expects you to know how to think deeper....and they expect me to teach you. The principal expects me to get you ready to pass the TAKS test in about 3 months.

Passing that test is going to be IMPOSSIBLE if, like you did on the benchmark last week, you:
*continually gripe about having to read long passages ....
*only halfway read multiple-choice questions and their answers before bubbling one....
*refuse to answer the Open-Ended Questions because, God Forbid, we make you write 3 sentences...
AND
*you continue to approach the essay from a "How long does it have to be?" whiny perspective.

Keep this up...and you'll be in Senior English AND Junior English next year."

~~~
After it was over, I felt a small, infintesimal twinge of guilt for my tirade.

And then I realized that the tirade released a ton of stress.

And all of a sudden, the guilt...she was gone.

Especially when the children seemed to get their act together for the remainder of class.

Please God. Let it continue tomorrow. I'm not sure I can handle that two days in a row.

~hasta