Tough Week

This week has been a tough week but I hope it will get better. I love teaching and have to remind myself often how much I do love what I do, to keep me going. Some of my students have pushed me to that breaking point this week. I got rid of culinary club and our fundraisers in the morning because it had become me doing everything rather than my students. My mom was telling me that they call the kids we are teaching the "me" generation and I believe it. They want someone to do the work for them and then they get the results from it.

My students were selling sweet tea in the mornings and it was a huge money maker for us. I realized that I could teach these kids anything with food because our budget was no longer an issue. The problem became that I was the one getting there early to set up the tea station, I was the one helping make the tea, and I was the one that had to clean up afterwards. On Thursday, I walked back into my room from my morning duty and saw my students just standing around while the room was a disaster area with empty tea pitchers everywhere. That was my breaking point and I made Friday the last day for tea sales. The sad thing is the students don't seem to understand the consequences because I do not think that they usually have to deal with consequences. I think they will understand next week when we cook a very small amount of what we were planning to cook because we must now budget our money.

I care so much about my students but I realize that I cannot do things for them and expect them to learn. I hope that the rest of the semester goes better and that they will be begging me and promising me that they will work harder if I bring back tea. It makes my life easier if we do not have to budget so carefully.