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.
posted by lobo5747 @ 5:37 PM
2 Comments:
That girl seemed so funny!I know, it's kind of mean to laugh at people like that, BUT... :)))
What a sweet boy, trying to make you less horrified of your 7th period.
I haven't read all of your "blog" but I am a teacher and I love teaching. You must face each day as a clean slate; each moment new from the last and hold no grudges. Yes sometimes it is hard to do (and there are some children that no matter how hard you try you will never love, so you go the extra distance to make sure you treat them fairly) but if you can't do this you might reconsider your calling in life. True teachers are called and love what they do.
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