I wanted to give myself some time before I was completely cliche and jumped on my blog to vent about my awful week.

After being a day away from that week, it could have been much more awful and in the collection of weeks of this year, there have been worse. I think I just have hit the point where I am less concerned about my opportunities as a teacher and willing to put

myself on the line for my students. I have consciously decided that this is not my life-long career, that the people I work with are just colleagues for these two years and I am not going to compromise my relationships with them for the relationships and futures of my students.

Being a sped teacher puts you in a tough spot- you are the one teacher that "gets" kids that other teachers don't "get" or choose not to try to "get." You are constantly the dumping ground for 'unwanted' kids or undesirable behaviors and problems because you are supposed to have the magic recipe for curing them or keeping them civilized for 90 minutes of the day. You are also the dumping ground for their complaints and frustrations with their own capabilities of teaching those kids or seeing those kids in the hallways. And I guess I can't blame them because with

out understanding your position or effort and without understanding the students' weaknesses and areas of deficiencies how else are they supposed to cope? Being a general education teacher is tough as well. Handling the work and grades for 100+ students, teaching the same lesson 3 times in a day, having admin and district people constantly checking you for fidelity of the curriculum and your ass being on the line if your students are performing at their best (because none of them have learning disability crutches). If I put myself in the position of a general ed teacher at my school, I would probably be frustrated for reasons that I don't even skim in my position. I have to consider that..

However, I will never forge

t this week because for the first time in this "professional" stage in my life, I have never felt so strongly about being discredited. It's been a building feeling but a certain disagreement and argument in a meeting and in the parking lot this week pretty much solidified my feeling of complete underestimation.

At the end of it, it worked out to my favor at the disappointment of my colleague, but being my next door neighbor teacher, there remains an awkward tension. And as hard as I try, I don't know if I'll be able to shake off the words that were exchanged or the feeling that sat in my gut all week. I also don't know if I will be able to NOT try to constantly prove that teacher wrong. For the rest of the year, I am challenging this teacher in my efforts to make MY students the best that they can be.

And challenging myself to look at this as a constructive opportunity to turn things in a different direction and to maybe put myself in a gen ed teacher's position.

C