It's probably not a Very Good Thing that I continually want to cry after all of my classes.

I could blame the depressive state I seem to be stuck in. I could blame my low blood sugar, or the weather, or the joblessness I'm not enjoying.

I could, but I won't, because those aren't the reasons.

(Reminder to self: next entry--the state of special education as a philosophy and career).

It started when I entered the Curriculum for Students with Mild Disabilities class. The instructor is finally taking ownership of the class, but at a month into the session, I fear it might be too late. An hour and forty-five minute class was spent discussing first the syllabus (we should have it by Thursday? Maybe?), then spent discussing three power point slides.

Three.

I suppose this would be barable were it not for the fact that there is a student in the class who is utterly detestable. It's very rarely that I feel such immense dislike for someone, but I did upon meeting him the first time, when he called "no takesy backseys!" during a group assignment. I didn't like him much more when he spent the rest of the group assignment discussing his static line experiences with the instructor rather than actually doing the assignment.

I liked him even less when he began prefacing every statement with, "In my wife's class..."

Last week, during another group assignment, he bragged that he had not even read an article to review, yet he had an ever present opinion. The data in someone's article suggested that special education students have, typically, a lower IQ Score than their peers.

I pointed out to him that the article was stating it's the score that is lower and not the actual Intelligence Quotient itself, which may be difficult to test for depending upon circumstances.

I should have quoted Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead." Both statements would have received the same response from this fellow peer o' mine.

Instead, it took an explanation from a fellow classmate, Brian, and an explanation using the exact same wording that I had used, for this peer o' mine to accept the difference in semantics.

Today, the discussion from peer o' mine took a different turn. In discussing Free and Appropriate Education, peer o' mine said something about not allowing children with Down Syndrom in the traditional classroom, especially if they were nonverbal, because...and follow this reasoning?...their IQ is less than 50.

The instructor was the only one who responded. "No. You're wrong. And don't fight me on this one, because you'll lose."

Score 1 for her.

See, I quit listening to peer o' mine when he first demonstrated that he will not listen to me. I quit listening to him when he bragged that he hadn't even attempted the homework, yet had a valid opinion, which, by the way, was not the point of the assignment. The assignment was to view other people's opinions. I quit listening to peer o' mine when the braggart boasted, during a test study session, that despite not reading the assigned chapters, he knew all of the answers.

He was disputing the answers because he marked them wrong, of course, but trying to argue his way out of them.

I hate that this person is crawling under my skin this much but even more, I hate that he will, as of January, be in the classroom. With students. Real live people.

And tonight, sitting in the BED (behavior/emotional disorders) class tonight, I wanted to cry out of frustration. The professor let us out early; she couldn't make the computer work right and had the entire lesson on Power Point. We sat for two hours while she read to us multiple papers ver batim, then listened to her again while she complained about being "thrown" in our classroom. There is no discussion, which I would be perfectly understandable about, were there any education at all.

There is none.

I've been so worried that all of this was just me, until I saw the lady behind me make a gun with her finger and place it at her temple, then whisper, "boom!" It's not just me.

It's not just me regarding peer o' mine, either. Walking to our cars from class, the same lady said, "You know, I want to ask him what it's like to be the smartest person in the world!"

You and me both.