JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #4
A Week with More Questions Than Answers
I don't even know how to start this week's diary entry. Do I address the terror of 9/11/01 or do I move forward and act normally, as we teachers at Pleasanton Middle School were advised to do for our students? I can't believe I actually DID spend the week acting normally and continuing to teach as usual. The first half hour of Tuesday morning's first period was spent letting the 6th graders talk and ask questions. I was calm and matter-of-fact. Yet, in those first hours, we knew so little. And not once as the week unfolded was I open to discussion of the tragedy and unfolding news. Did I fail my students? Was I protecting them or me? Did I squash conversation because that is what the administration advised or because I was afraid I would break down? Was I playing out my British stiff-upper-lip heritage or did I believe that my students needed the reassurance that life really wasn't so terribly upset, after all? Or am I simply an inexperienced new teacher who did the best she knew how? I don't have the answers. This week I came face to face with another ugliness. I caught several of my students cheating, and I suspect a few others. Their attempts were clumsy and easily caught, but the fact that they would even consider cheating upsets me greatly. It feels like a personal affront, like a slap in the face. Perhaps they are testing me, and thus the clumsiness of their efforts. But trust has been breached and it will take much effort on their parts to win it back again. I like and enjoy these kids so much and it pains me that they feel the need to be dishonest. I don't understand it. This seems to be a week of Why's with perhaps very few answers. Wariness has crept into our nation and into my classroom. Vigilance supersedes trust. Sorrow replaces complacency. And so ends this horrific week.
