Public School Daze
The lovely joys of working for the public school system includes the lightening fast response time from the maintence staff.
Could you sense the sarcasm?
The air conditioner went out in the middle of last week. The entire sixth grade hallway is not only missing the cold air, but yesterday the system started blowing warm air at us. By early afternoon it is easily 85 degrees, and by the end of the day today, it was over 90. Pubescent children are very good at generating heat too, so we were miserable during the final two classes of the day.
The instructional coach at my school came in to visit during my 8th period class and said I should try to find a cooler place to hold my class, so we moved into the hallway. For some reason it's cold out there. My students were very grateful for the cool air, and it helped to keep them interested in the day.
I bet they will get the air conditioner fixed right about when the weather turns and we will be needing the heaters!!!
Normalcy??? Normality?? What should I call it?
So it's Monday morning. Again. Seems this day comes around about once a week. I am usually well rested on Mondays, which means that my huge number of 11-year olds is as well. They are always very perky first thing in the morning. Today was also the first time I had seen this group of children since August 19. Due to our block scheduling, I see my students every other day. With my absences last week, I missed both of the times this group of kids came to my classroom.
They had tons to tell me. Apparently my substitute was the devil. Yay. The first one was ok, but the second grew horns and turned her head all the way around. She may or may not have had projectile pea soup vomit. They weren't too sure about that detail.
Do any of you remember that about your subs? It could have been one of the Playboy playmates, but when the teacher comes back, the sub was devil spawn. Haha. They make me giggle.
My fourth period class was the only class I received a bad report from. So they received a tongue lashing. They were very good for today, but we'll see how long that lasts.
The crowning moment today, however, came during my reading class. This class really didn't follow directions when I had a sub, so I was pretty irritated with them. While I was trying to explain to them why I was so irritated, there was this one little boy who kept trying to explain to me how wonderful he was and how he shouldn't be getting in trouble with the rest of the class. He finally got irritated with me because I was ignoring him, and he kicked his backpack across the room.
Oh dear.
I sent him to go sit in the hallway while I finished chewing out my class. Then I sat at my desk to write my own behavior report for this child. As I was writing the report, the instructional coach came into my room because there was a child on the floor. Now, I have been told for three years that I need to spend less time on my rear while I am at work. So I have made a huge effort to NOT sit down. It's got to be my karma that she happened to walk in during one of the maybe 10 minutes all day that I was actually at my desk. Oh, and even better than that was the knowledge that my pricipal was out there as well. Oh hell. I've been trying to prove to her that I am able to teach for three years. They picked the perfect day to hang out in my hallway.
I can't wait until tomorrow!! Just because if it's tomorrow than today is officially over!!
The sub report
Apparently they stuck two separate substitutes in my room while I was gone. The first sub is one I know well and have complete faith in. Last year when he subbed for the the very first time, he gave away all of my supplies. So after a not so pleasant discussion about that, he has been wonderful with my classes. When I was told he would be my sub, I was thrilled to death.
Then I got back to school yesterday after my three day bereavement leave, and I was thrilled to death to see that there was a pile of foldables on my desk! Woohoo!! The sub followed my lesson plans. That was so exciting for me, because it is a rare day when the sub actually does what you want.
I opened my desk drawer to get a pen and start logging in all of the assignments on my desk, and all of my pens were gone.
Sigh.
I guess I got the well known sub for the first day, then this other woman came in. She followed my lesson plans exactly as they were written down. I was very impressed with that. However, she gave away my pens, pencils, paper, and almost all of a box of 6,000 stickers. I took a deep breath yesterday morning and tried to weigh the good and the bad.
It is really wonderful to have a sub who is willing to follow lesson plans. Many of them bring in a book and expect to be able to read all day. So this sub was a godsend. She managed to accomplish everything that I had written down, including the "extra" stuff that I left in case all the students finished the first assignments. I was also pleased to see that there were no major behavior problems in there while I was gone. That also says a lot about a sub.
I do have some issues with my supplies being gone though. Many of the supplies that I have in my classroom I purchased on my own. It's hard for me to educationally justify buying a box of 6,000 stickers, so I just got them on my own. The pens, pencils, and paper came from the school district's warehouse though, so that wasn't out of my own pocket, but out of my classroom budget. My classroom budget is pretty tight, so I was rather irritated about the supplies going as fast as they did. I do not ever give my supplies to my students. They are required to pay for them. If they give me the item back in good condition at the end of the day, they get their money back.
I put in a new warehouse order for pens and pencils. I will probably get my supplies around Halloween.
I decided that I would rather have a sub that follows lesson plans.
So thank you to my subs while I was gone. I am very impressed with the work I received when I returned.
Still not back to normal
I have made an effort to keep my location to myself, because nobody really needs to know where I teach, just THAT I teach. So I can't explain why I have been gone all week because it would give away my location. Although most of my readers know where I am.
This has been a very emotionally exhausting week for me. I wish I was small enough to crawl into my mom's lap and cry. However, I have two other little girls curled into my lap and they have been crying this week. Weird how "adulthood" hits you in strange ways like that.
I have not been at work since Monday, so I cannot update on how my sub has survived the week. I promise that I will tell you how it went as soon as I can. This weekend is shaping up to be quite the busy weekend for me, so I don't think I'll have time until Sunday afternoon to get on here again.
I wanted to take a minute and say thank you to a few people.
First, to the neohippy guy, or whoever he is. I didn't want to link him, because I don't think his blog deserves a read. He made a comment in his blog that I was scary because I spelled two words incorrectly in my profile. While I don't appreciate the form in which his criticism was sent, I do appreciate the criticism. I updated my profile information and I believe that it is indeed correct. I also appreciate that in his attempt to defile an unnamed teacher, he linked to my blog, thus increasing my traffic and also my revenue. Thank you very much hippy dude.
Thank you to the folks at Gazoo. I received my weekly member email and I was not only mentioned, but also linked. That was a nice gesture, and after the day I had previously, that email hit the right "feel good" spot.
Thank you to my husband's colleague Nate, for reminding me how wonderful my husband is.
And I wanted to say thank you to my brother. This morning I was an emotional basketcase and there was nobody in town who I could call to talk to. So I called him. He was home, and he listened as I cried and I made him cry. I think I would have been stuck at the side of the road for hours if it wasn't for him.
The first sub
I'm terrified.
We have had a pretty tragic week in my family, so I have to take the next three days to go to funerals.
I can only hope that my sub can read. It doesn't seem like any type of reading skills are a requirement to be a sub these days.
Please think happy thoughts for my classes this week. We need all the positive energy we can get.
Oh, and thanks to the oldbaldguy at
Gazoo.
A Silver Lining
Yesterday was a particularly hideous day for me. I attribute the turd-ness to the end of the first full week and I will start over on Monday with a perky attitude again. However, after my reading class yesterday I was ready to throw in the towel take up prostitution.
It's a big class, that is the first grumble concerning this year's reading class. I should have no more than 14 and so far I have 19 in there. They are all low readers and they also feel that they CAN'T read, which always makes for a fun kid. I have this child named Andy who believes he would enjoy living in an anarchist society. I asked him if he knew what that was, and he said no, but the symbol looks cool.
Ok.
They came in after lunch, they sat down, and they talked. I stood in the back and I waited. They talked some more. I waited some more. I could have easily put an end to it and remained patient, but I didn't. Instead I grabbed the teacher's manual for a REALLY old chemistry text, and I dropped in very hard on the floor. It was loud, and it got my point across. 19 little heads bobbled and turned towards me. 19 little faces looked like I shot their dog. I scared the crap out of them, and I felt totally ok with that action. I am not ashamed, so don't bother reprimanding me.
We had a discussion about their behavior and why they felt it was ok to sit and talk for ten minutes while the teacher waited. One of the students did bring up that I didn't make an attempt to gather their attentions to me, and he was correct. I retaliated with the age old, "you need to be prepared to work when the bell rings" comment. That includes sitting still and not talking. They all agreed that I was correct. Their assignment for yesterday was to write an eleven-sentence paragraph explaining to me why it is important to be prepared without their mouths shut when class starts. I haven't read any of them yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Then the boss lady distributed our paychecks. This is the first paycheck with the new raise on it, and I really wasn't sure what it was going to look like. I slowly folded the crease, then tore off one of the strips. I did the same with the following two before I carefully opened the green paper that held my riches for the next two weeks.
I had trouble standing.
This paycheck is by far the largest amount of money anybody has ever given me to do something called "work." I felt like the blisters on my big toes on BOTH feet, the way my voice went from strong and solid to meak and hoarse, the pain that I am currently experiencing in my claves is all justified. I actually got paid to teach.
Now bring on the payday happy hour.
I will see you all next week!!
The first full week......muhahahahahahaha
I received an email from my brother that said he checked my blog and there was nothing new. He was wondering if something was wrong with the site. Teehee. No Bro, the site is fine. I, however, am officially insane.
I sat down at home after school today and took a deep breath. I haven't done that all week. I looked at my kitchen and realized that I can't see all the way to the other side. There is a small path leading from the door to the hallway, but on either side of the path is stuff. I can't even describe what is piled up in my kichen. A carseat, a couple of backpacks, a box full of old magazines (which was supposed to go to work with me three days ago), mail, pom-poms, an old laundry bag, and empty cartons of beer (we try to recycle, but instead the recycling piles up in the kitchen). School started and my housekeeping (which was bad to begin with) went south.
And I realized that I haven't eaten since yesterday evening. Sigh.
Welcome to the 2005-2006 school year.
I don't work during the summer so I can spend time with my kids, so going back to school is a bit of an adjustment. I'll get it all worked out by May, I promise.
Let me do a bit of an update, and this may take awhile so make sure you've got a drink.
The first few weeks of school are always a scheduling nightmare, so most of the teachers don't do any heavy duty work until the second week. This week I have had my students interview each other and do an artistic representation of the person they interviewed. It is awesome to see what they come up with, and they are always relieved that the first assignment is a drawing. I know what you're thinking, it doesn't really have anything to do with science, but being the brilliant teacher that I am, I was able to relate this assigment to the scientific method. If you'd like to know how I did that, email me and I will send you my lesson plan. I have had some awesome stuff turned in. I use this artwork for the "student centered" bulletin board. You know every good teacher is supposed to have a "student centered" bulletin board right?
Please, like everything we do isn't "student centered."
Each teacher at my school also teaches a reading class that is supposed to be leveled. I teach a lower level class, with second to fourth grade readers. Unfortunately, in sixth grade there are a bunch of students that haven't been tested on our system and I had some readers in there that REALLY didn't belong.
We finally took the test yesterday.
I have 19 students total in that class. 11 of them are reading at the right level to be in my class, three of them are considered non-readers, and five of them are reading at the sixth grade level. In the five years I have been teaching, I have NEVER had a student test AT grade level. So I really don't know what to do with these students. How horrible is that? I have kids that actually KNOW HOW to read, and I don't know how to teach them.
I am ashamed of myself.
Thankfully they are taking the grade level readers out of my class and giving them to a teacher that knows how to handle kids that can read. I need to stick with my letter recognition students. The ones that can read scare me.
I have a few students to mention at this point. The first we will call Edgar. This poor child has me for science and for reading. He is one of those that gets to be removed from my class. Unfortunately, he isn't going up. This poor child is a non reader. Seriously. He had no idea how to pronounce my name, and he left out at least two sounds of my last name. I am almost embarassed to admit that my school district let him get all the way to 6th grade. However, he is the first child whose name I remembered. If you are a teacher, you know what that means. If you aren't a teacher, it means this kid is a pain in the ass. He's a good pain in the ass though. He's not mean at all, he's just, um, dumb.
Oh lord my karma is gonna kill me for saying that. I'm a teacher, I should probably not call my students dumb.
Ok, Edgar is behind. By a lot.
Then there is this little girl that we shall refer to as Sophia. She has been in my class since day 1, so it's not like she's new. And I need to give you a bit of background before I continue with this story.
My school works on a block schedule. So the students are given 8 classes, and we only teach 4 a day. They go to 1st through 4th periods on "A" days, then 5th through 8th periods on "B" days. Math and Language Arts is every day, and the rest of the classes are every other day. I've got seven groups of kids (six science classes and one reading class), and then a prep period every day. One of our prep periods is for "professional use." We will do training, parent conferences, Academic Improvement Plans, or gripe sessions during the professional preps. The other is for personal use. I use it for naps.
Now, that means I have seen Sophia twice before today. Twice is enough to remember what teacher is in what room and what period that student has that teacher for. At least, it is for most students, but not all. My professional prep was today (today was a "B" day), first thing in the morning. I rarely make it into my classroom before the bell rings, but this morning I was there a little early to put up a few more posters. The first bell rang and I went about my business until the door opened. This little girl walked in, followed by an enormous suitcase on wheels and a horrible odor. She reminded me of Pigpen from the Snoopy cartoons. She came in with a little cloud around her.
She went right to her assigned seat, got out her paper and pencil, and got ready to work. I watched all of this trying very hard not to laugh. I know, I shouldn't be teaching. Not with the sense of humor I have. I figure I need to find humor in any situation, otherwise there is no point in life.
I waited to see if she was going to figure out she was very obviously in the wrong place.
She didn't.
The tardy bell rang and she was still sitting there waiting to be instructed. So I asked her if I could point her in the right direction. I, of course, needed her schedule to help her find where she was supposed to be. She insisted that she was supposed to be in THIS room at THIS period. She said "I am in room ** with Mrs. **. This is room ** and I don't know if you are Mrs. ** or not, but this is what my schedule says."
Ok
The thing that bothered me about this conversation is that she had already been in my class twice so far, so she knows that I am Mrs. **. She was looking at me like she had never met me before. I was totally baffled. She refused to let me see her schedule so that I could help her out a little because she was so sure she knew where she was supposed to be. I was needing to be in a meeting so I needed to get this kid out of my classroom and I had no idea what else to do.
Thankfully, the teacher that she has for that particular class watched her come into my room so she came to check on her. Phew.
But then again, how sad. I had no idea how to react to that poor girl. She confused the crap out of me.
Then there is my seventh period class. I have had a bad history with my seventh period classes, so I came into this year with a poor attitude where seventh period was concerned. I feel bad for those kids too. They haven't had a chance to be good or bad to me. They just showed up. Today after my reading class and before my seventh period, I locked the door to my room and went to the bathroom. While I was in the potty, I had an anxiety attack. It was WEIRD!! I don't even know these kids yet, but the simple fact that they are in my seventh period makes me dislike them already. I have been very open with them about my previous four years of seventh period classes. So when I walked out of the bathroom, one of the little boys came over and put his arm around my shoulders and said: "Don't worry, we won't be as bad as your other seventh period classes."
I almost burst into tears.
I love my job sometimes.
If you made it to the end, thank you very much for reading. Please let me know how I'm doing. I know Bro will, and I love getting the comments.
Somebody explain this to me.
Your Political Profile
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Overall: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
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Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
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Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
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Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
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Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
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Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
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I found this on David's blog, and so I went and took the quiz. I'm not entirely surprised that overall I'm 50/50. To me that sounds about right. What do you guys think?
A Weekend Full of Thoughts
I should be writing lesson plans. Instead I am surfing blogs. I love getting the comments on my blog and I want more of them. So, in an effort to increase the traffic to my blog I have joined quite a few traffic sites. In order to gain more traffic, I have to surf through other member blogs. Some of them I have found really interesting, others I wish I had never run across. Either way it has been an interesting afternoon. Unfortunately, I have responsibilities that extend beyond my seven hours in the classroom every day. Honestly, my day has never ended when the bell rang at 3:00.
There are usually papers to grade, parents to call, lesson plans to write, pencils to sharpen, emails to respond to. Sigh. I have never worked a 40 hour week, yet I work far more than 40 hours a week. Can somebody please pay me overtime??
This weekend I have lesson plans to write. The principal at my school has decided that she is going to be more strict and review the teacher lesson plans on a quarterly basis. She is asking for all lesson plans to include daily objectives, to what standards we are teaching, what materials we will need to successfully complete the lesson, an itenerary for the lesson, and an end of lesson assessment. I'm ok with all of those components because I use them all in my lesson plans. For five years I have used a very detailed lesson plan form and I have had other teachers balk at how much work goes into each lesson.
In the end, I ended up with the upper hand. I can pop out one of my "overly difficult" lesson plans in about two minutes. I have trained most of the other teachers at my school on how to use this lesson plan, and they are taking ten to fifteen minutes per lesson. Practice makes perfect. After five years I am quite good at this format. So while the rest of the staff is scrambling to complete the detailed lesson plans for the first quarter, all I have to do is plug in the dates.
But that is only for my science classes.
This year my principal is asking all of us to write the same detailed lessons for our reading classes. Most of us have treated our reading classes as a joke since I have been at this school. It's a forty minute class that feels like it lasts for three days each. I have been drawing blanks for three years on how to teach this class, so this year I am going with a very scripted program that takes all the work out of having to plan for this class. This scripted program is my sanity's godsend this year. There is a light at the end of the SSR tunnel, and it's name is Soar to Success.
So I guess I shouldn't feel that bad about surfing blogs.
Oh, on a more personal note. And I swore I was going to leave my personal life out of this blog. I have a personal diary blog. I don't need to add my personal crap to this one. HOWEVER, like with any other career, my profession has a HUGE impact on my life. There is never a time when my "teacher hat" will not be on my head. I can run into my students at the mall or at the movies, and I will always be their teacher. I don't get to leave my job at my job site. I will be the teacher forever.
Moving on, this morning I was supposed to go to a training at school. The principal swears up and down it is a voluntary training, but she never really means it. So I got stuck. My oldest daughter had her first football game today, and my youngest had her gymnastics exhibition. Of course these are all at the same time. It's a typical parent conundrum, but add in the job training and I felt like I should just go stick my head in the sand all day and attend none of these functions. What would you have done?
I ended up at the gymnastics exhibition. The kid is three. Can you imagine something more precious than a three year old doing a balance beam dash? Yeah, me either.
Work will just have to deal with being my WEEKDAY activity. I have to give some of my time to my children.
Now, if only I could figure out how to spend some time with my husband and fix whatever it is that is killing the intimacy between the two of us.
One Down.....
One hundred and eighty two to go. Sigh. I suppose counting down to the end of the school year isn't the best way to start a school year, but after the day I had today I can think of no other way to describe the way we got started.
We are horrible with schedules. We register the students on registration day and the returning students and all who pre-registered received their schedules. So one would then figure that the only trouble would be with the kids who didn't pre-register. Unfortunately, after four years at this school I fully understand that 95% of the students will have problems with their schedules. On the first day of school the entire student population needs a new schedule. It creates havoc, and it makes for a very exhausing experience. My poor 6th graders are expecting everyday to be as chaotic as today, and I even heard one little girl say that she didn't want to come back tomorrow because she so confused this morning. And the 6th graders are so, um, fragile. If you look at them the wrong way they burst into tears.
Speaking of sixth graders, I have to make a first impression note. I have been at this school for five years and I am used to a particular type of student. These kids are from incredibly poor backgrounds where the parents don't really care about the educational benefits of school, to them it's a break from being the parent. Honestly, it's a bleak outlook on my demographics, but it's the truth. Not for 100% of the students, but for a large portion of them it is. So I expect to have to explain to my students how to put together a sentence and how to end that sentence with a punctuation mark. THESE ARE 6TH GRADERS!! 12 YEAR OLDS!!! So I start with them today the same place I have always started and they got irritated and asked me to stop babying them.
I have no words to describe the feeling that washed over me this morning when I heard that. So I stopped talking and let them work independently, and an even greater feeling became me when I saw that they were doing exactly what they were instructed to do. Never in the first week of school, let alone the first day, has that ever happened.
I think I now need to retire, so then I can end on a good note.
Then reality struck and most of the class turned in today's paper without a name.
Three hours of classroom time is not enough
Today was the first day back for the entire staff. Our admin provided breakfast for us, and in typical teacher fashion, almost everybody was late. So breakfast started late, then the meetings started late, and the entire day ran about twenty minutes behind. Is it that difficult to make it to work on time.
We spent the morning listening to people talk. First we talked about the new special education incusion setting at my school. Then we talked about the schedules. The principal introduced all the new teachers, and said congrats to those who had good things happen over the summer.
Then we had to go to our department meetings. Unfortunately I am once again part of the science department. I like the science teachers at my school, but I don't want to be one of them. I want to go back to language arts where my passion lies.
We were then given the afternoon to work in our classrooms. NEAT.
Except that after working in my room for three hours I am nowhere near ready to go. I have a ton of stuff to do, and there is no more time for us to work in our roomsbefore the kids come.
I do know that one woman, who had no right to assist in making this decision, said that if three hours isn't enough to get it all done, then we need to come in on our own time.
Hmmm, I don't have any of my own time.
So pooh. What do I do now?
A "Thank You" to my state's legislators
I ran out of coffee this weekend. I rarely run out of coffee. For me that is about as bad as when a soriority house runs out of toilet paper. So early Saturday morning I dragged my very hungover and not too happy butt down to the, *gasps*, local Starbucks. I ordered myself a grande Carmel Macciato (and I know I didn't spell that right, but I don't really care). The man in the speaker box thanks me for my order, then asks if I would like to add the daily newspaper. As my normal "no thanks" begins to fall out of my mouth, my brain intercedes and I say sure. At the window I hand my cash to the annoyingly perky 17-year old cashier with the cute butt (damn her) and she hands me my coffee and my paper, and I drive my not cute butt back home.
What? What's this I'm reading in my daily newspaper? There is a huge article about the tax-free weekend. How in the name of retail did I not have previous knowledge of this? One of my memory minders is about to get fired.
In a fury, I got myself, my very tired husband, and my oldest daughter ready for a back to school shopping spree. I am more than broke, however, a bounced check is worth a tax free weekend.
Off to retail therapy.
I bought so much stuff I didn't even have anywhere to put it. All of the back-to-school purchases are being stored in the middle of the kitchen floor. I want to take them out, and touch them all. I love school supplies. Pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, paper, binders, folders. I love them all. It's weekends like this that remind me that teaching does have it's perks.
So thanks to all of the state legislatures that pushed for, and won, this weekend. Every teacher, every student, and every parent appreciates what you have done for us.
And I'm back
I will never be ok going back to school on the very first day. I will always wish I was still laying in bed staring at the ceiling, and quite frankly, bored out of my mind. I spend the days of the summer trying to figure out how I'm going to spend my days. Yet when school is back in session, I hate that my boredom has been taken away from me.
Today was a professional development day. As a teacher, we are required to continue our learning throughout my entire career. Today we discussed a certain reading "program" called balanced literacy. From my point of veiw, it's not really a program. It's more like common sense teaching. You start off modeling the skills you want your students to know, then you slowly work yourself out of the picture until the kids are doing it on their own. Sounds like a no-brainer right? Unfortunately it must not be, seeing as how we had to do an entire day of training on how to incorporate balanced literacy into our reading classes.
Every teacher at my school teaches a reading class, even the P.E. teacher.
I had many trainings on balanced literacy when I was in college, hell I had an entire class on it. I passed it too. So today was like a refresher, which is fine because I'd much rather get a refresher now than when I have 17 6th grade faces looking at me. I cave under pressure.
There was of course more grief at the old school today, seeing as how the only thing that teachers do better than stealing is gossiping. However, I will not post it. While I fully admit that the gossip and grief that I go through is VERY normal and adds to the frustrations of my job, I also know that if I were the one contributing to somebody else's grief I don't think I'd want to read about it on the internet. I am still in my original classroom, and that's what matters. I can deal with the rest of the grief.
I asked my instructional coach today how I could improve upon my job. I said to her that I need the first thing that comes to mind when she think of me. She says I need to get off my ass. Seriously, that was what came out of her mouth. Haha, guess that means I really do spend too much of my time at my desk.
And here I thought nobody noticed what I did at the school.
So my goal for the beginning of the school year will be to stay off my "ass" as much as possible when there are students in my classroom. Hmm, does that mean I should start wearing more comfy shoes?
The last day of freedom
Today is the last day off for me before I officially start my work year. How odd to have a nine month work year.
I figured I would have a nice, leisurely day at home, resting and enjoying my family.
Instead I am fighting with them. Except for poor Katie. She is the good kid.
Stella decided to pitch another of her collosal fits, and my husband picked that moment to ask me what we were gonna have for lunch. So I'm trying to not allow my child to upset me again, and I have NO idea what I would like to have for lunch.
SOOO, Stella cries more, and husband decides that since I don't know what I want, we're not having lunch today.
I'm so glad today turned out to be such a nice, fucking, day.
Getting my classroom ready.
I fought with my principals for weeks over whether or not I was going to have to move classrooms. I am currently a science teacher, and I don't like it very much. I am a language arts teacher at heart, but because I have a fascination with gemstones, I took gem classes in college and am now certified to teach science in middle school. Lucky me.
So the principals decided to contract for a new science lab, and jokingly last year I commented that if they were going to make me teach science again, I was gonna get the new lab. I never really thought I would be teaching science again. Yet here I am. So when I received word that I would indeed be teaching 6th grade science again, I told the department leader that I had no interest in getting the new science room, and that they should really give it to one of my team teachers because she has been asking for it for three years.
She is special ed.
Special ed is very neglected where I work.
So I'm at a wedding for the science department leader, and of course both of my principals are there. They tell me that I need to go in to the school as soon as possible to move my things out of my classroom so that the woman who is getting my room (even hearing her name is like nails on a chalkboard. I cannot stand this particular teacher!!!) can move in and she wants to get it done immediately. I am floored that they decide to tell me this at a social event, but then I reconsider that this is coming out of the same mouth of the woman that I witnessed, oh wait, writing that would be considered gossipy.
I of course, get quite angry. I don't want the science lab, and I don't want this horrid woman in my room!! So my team teacher friend and I start a nice camaign to get what we want, and thanks to some wit and hard work, we both got what we want and the only person in the cold was the h woman nobody really cared about anyway.
*Note, I removed some of the original post, because I forget that some members of my staff may be reading this and don't necessarily need to be reading what was written there. If you had already read what was there, please know that I went ahead and took that piece of information to the state board of education and asked for advice on how to handle it further.
And I shall take even greater pleasure in being in my classroom for another year.
And I shall take great pleasure in knowing that TEACHER will not get my beloved classroom.
And I'll make sure I voice my pleasure.
