Day too and still not a bad week

Tuesday, October 8, 2013 I'm in a 5th and 6th grade Math class that changes so I don't have the same kids all day. For the most part, things are fine. The teacher in the class is very neat and organized, which is great! Clean and coherent lesson plan for the day and students were explained the assignment the day before so unless they are just messing with me, the students knew what they had to do. Of course, there will always be that one student in each class that will test me. The good thing about these classes today is that no one in the room found it the least bit funny and so that worked to my advantage. I hate it when a kids wastes my time with questions they either don't care about getting the answer to or just want to play dumb with me. I generally walk away without giving help to those students but this kid had diarrhea of the mouth...he just kept up with comments and then started smarting off to me about how did I get to be a teacher and other insults. Instead of humiliating the kid in front of his classmates, I asked him to step out of the room. This didn't seem to make a difference but I told him he need to change his attitude and stop with the comments. All he did was walk back in still running his mouth. I have a feeling the teacher will do something about this because one student mentioned detention if anyone was acting out in class while he was gone. So I have left a note about this student : ) Other than that, the classes were great. I did have a class working on a math magazine with questions they were not prepared to answer. I just told them to try their best because I really couldn't begin to teach them new math concepts. I always leave a nice note for the teacher. I try to compliment them or their students because I would hate to hear only negative parts of the day. Plus it really isn't fair to the students that work hard when it is only a couple that seem to ruin it for the rest. But so far, my week of picky school picking is paying off! I haven't had to yell which is good because I am coughing a lot and not sleeping well. If I had to yell I might lose my voice all together!

Best Day Ever!

Monday, October 7, 2013 Not only am I at a school less than a block from my home but I am in a 3rd grade class! It is still my favorite grade. There are 29 students in the room and the day began with them putting away their things and then getting their independent reading books. It was quiet! Students knew their routine and listened. I called them to the carpet to have them explain what they need to write in the margins when they are reading their Time for Kids magazine. They were to read the cover story and underline information they either connected to, had prior knowledge of, questions if they didn't understand and anything new they may have learned while reading it! I LOVE THIS! Students could sit anywhere in the room to do this and this was the same at writing time too. Writing, they were working on memoirs and final drafts could be typed on the ipads that were in the room. I am writing during my prep time...students are in gym. We have math this afternoon and they are working on a research project about the Arctic. Teachers keep asking me how is it going and I just say I am in heaven. This is great and they laugh. Yes, it is a great class, school and no reason why everyday shouldn't be this way everywhere. I THINK, and I could be wrong, but I picked jobs this week that should all be this way but at different schools. I love this. I only wish I hadn't been coughing until 1am but at least it is a good, active day with great, active learning happening.

Friday didn't end soon enough

Friday, October 4, 2013 My last assigned south side school. I was in a self-contained room with 5-6th graders, 8 of them. I was told there would be an aid to assist me but he was late. There were two teacher desks in the room, one neat and the other a hot mess. I just set my stuff on the side counter near one desk in the back of the room. The teacher had been out all week with multiple subs who picked through the once organized work left by the teacher...so basically, I was scrapping the barrel to figure out what to do with the students. There was one student that was supposed to be in class but he was suspended the day before for pulling the fire alarm. So as I am trying to do work with students and working on descriptive words, the aid for the class comes in and proceeds to take over the class. Was I happy about this? No. It felt like a tug of war, in a way, because he is not a teacher and even though I may need his help, it wasn't with the teaching aspect. At one point, I asked for an example of what they ate for dinner, thinking they could tell me something and we can add descriptive words to it. This is when the aid says to me, "These kids don't eat dinner like you do." ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? I said to him, "Last night I ate a peanutbutter sandwich. They should be able to describe anything that they ate or drank." He looked at me and said, "oh." This was ridiculous. Later in the day I asked the students why they were all in this class and they told me it was because they had anger management issues. And did they! They would argue with me about the color of the sky. It was exhausting to argue when they had no idea about what they were saying. It was frustrating to no end. I had one boy pulled out a few times, thinking he was going to be violent to me. He was violent by throwing a bucket of books across the room and hitting another child. He punched something and said he wanted to hit me. But the school kept bringing him back into my room. I tried not to say anything to him at all unless there was a danger to what he was doing. One boy, whom I believe had autistic tendencies but the aid said no, sat hand writing the words from a book he was reading and drawing pictures to go with it. Very neat and beautiful. He sat smiling...even when one of the boys took a foam cup of water and smashed him on the top of his head with it. I wanted to cry as they laughed. It was so disturbing. I only saw the aid for about an hour and in a way, I was glad. He asked me, when he came in, if I would move my stuff so he could put his stuff down. Seriously? If he cleaned off the crap everywhere on his desk, my little bag wouldn't have been in the way. At the end of the day, the very nice secretary told me it seemed like a better day than the other subs had because security was hardly called. I bet the other subs were ringing that bell all day long but I am a gluten for punishment. I only call in case of emergency...otherwise I deal with it. Was glad this day was over.

My "Day" Off : )

Thursday, October 3, 2013 I took today off so that I could fulfill my master's program requirement of observing in either a middle or high school classroom. I decided to go back to a school I taught at last year for 6th grade during a maternity leave. Over the summer, a couple of those students emailed me about how they missed me and liked having me for a teacher. Wanting to know if I would be coming back but, of course, due to budgets and school closings, there were not open positions available to me again this year. It is hard to explain that to kids. I want them to understand but sometimes it is difficult to explain and understand as an adult! During the summer, I was having a down day, thinking about how badly I want to teach and watch a group of students grow and move on, when I received an email from a former student. This girl, when I first started teaching her class, really tried to give me a hard time but I never backed down and expected more from her. One day she cried and said she didn't think I liked her. I told her that was not true at all but that she needed to follow directions and not try to fight me so hard when I expect things from her. After that day, we never had a problem and she started to open up to me about her family and share things. I've learned that no matter how bad or what a student tells me that I don't react or seem shocked. I usually just ask them what THEY think or feel. And I listen, I don't judge. So this summer I received this email: Dear Ms.Lahare I Was Just Wondering How Yhu Have Been? Well Excuse My Spelling But It's Called "Txt Talk" And I Donno What I Did Wrong But I Got A "C" In Research.. That Surprised Me.. And Even Though We Hadn't Start Off Good..You're A Nice Teacher..I Was Disappointed When You Were'n't There On That Next Morning. Well Bye!! I started to cry. I know that sounds stupid but it just touched me that she thought to write and funny that she KNEW I would comment on her spelling! LOL! But as luck would have it, this student went home sick on the day I went to the school. But I will see her in a couple of week when I go back. When my students from last year saw me, they were so excited and hugging me and asking me if I was coming back to teach. But I explained that I was just finishing course work. They were bringing up advise I gave them or wanting to know if I remembered their names. It was bittersweet. But it is days like this that remind me that teaching is what I am meant to do.

Today was a good day : )

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 I was lucky enough to get a school about 15 minutes from home, which was nice. The teacher ACTUALLY attached a schedule and list of students to me thru the sub service website so I knew I would be with a group in a special education setting. I was in a classroom where 3, 4, 5th graders came in for services throughout the day. There were two students that stayed all day, a girl with Down's Syndrome and a boy who's disability was not known to me. The students all had ipads that they could uses when their paper work was finished. It was a lot of repetition and reading and partner reading which was nice. The kids all knew their routines so well. The aid was helpful. He was assigned to the 10 year old with Down's Syndrome. She was very funny. She wanted to know if I was married, had brothers, what their names were, if I had sisters, what were my parent's names. Later in the day she became more agitated about her cat being gone but in the morning she mentioned only that she had a cat. More importantly, she just wanted to go home. When the aid tried to work on sight words with her, she threw the cards and would let out these random screams or screeches. She was determined to get her way and go home. She was done. The aid was very patient waiting for her to pick up the cards (which never happened). But she was funny. She liked to purposely copy what you were doing even if it was rubbing your eyes or ears. She got a kick out of that. I think she may have cursed but wasn't quite sure...if it wasn't, it was awfully close! At the end of the say, I walked the boy who was in third grade, down to the office where everyone knew his name and said hi and he walked out to his bus with a bus aid. If only every day could be like this!

No More Southside...I think

Tuesday, October 1, 2013 I found out that another change was made to the sub system so I was able to put in my preferred sub-area. Some schools would take over an hour to get to and back. And with taking evening classes for special education, it is just too much. So at least my schools will now be within 30 minutes of my apartment. It was another rough day. At first, it started out ok. I had a small group of students in a self-contained special education classroom. A nice group of kids. A little hyperactive but polite and tried to work hard. I wasn't exactly filling in for one teacher. I was then in with a group of 7th graders while their teacher had a meeting. That lasted about an hour and they were fine too. Just when I thought it was going to be ok...I was sent to cover gym for the rest of the day so that teacher could test students. My first group: 4th grade. I love 4th grade! They came in, took their spots and proceeded to make my life a living hell. I should say that it was really only about 7 of them...one girl in particular. It was lovely. She called me a bitch for telling her to get quiet and listen since we were in a large gym with sounds bouncing off the walls along with several kids. When I got closer to her I was told to "get my white face out of her face". This group was pulled out and placed on a wall inside the gym but when the male teacher left, they screamed and yells and ruined any chance of giving this group a gym period. We say and waited. I waited to tell her teacher and escort her to the dean because she wasn't going to talk to me that way and get away with it. When the dean told her to apologize to me, she turned her back to me. NICE! For the rest of the day, gym was in their classrooms and a part of me felt bad about that but then there was no way in hell I was going to let another group of seemingly good kids ignore and mistreat me. On top of that, I didn't want to lose my voice. The whistle I was given only encouraged them to be louder.

Monday, Monday....

Monday, September 30, 2013 My day began as it usually does at the beginning of a payday week....I check my upcoming paycheck for errors. There always is. I almost expect there to be an error. So I call payroll to find out what hours and days they see me working on. THEN, I have to call the schools that messed up my hours and ask them to re-enter the time for me. Now, last year, corrections would be made and fixed for the same pay period but NOW, the lost hours go on the NEXT paycheck...it's going to be a long 2 more weeks. It's frustrating to say the least. It is sometimes the system and sometime the clerk. All I know is that I will have less money this Friday than I thought. The school today was pretty easy. I live for these days. The 8th grade teacher left a reading and asked that students write a 2 paragraph response. Fairly easy and they could work together to read the information. But there is always that one class that chooses not to do the work. With 5 minutes left, I told the students to just write their names on their papers and give them to me. I think I had 11 blank papers (except for their names). I told them this was ridiculous. During class, I took advantage of the fact that I had an overhead and started a discussion about the reading to ensure they understood what they were doing. There is alway on or two girls with attitudes and an excuse for everything. I clipped those 11 papers together and wrote a note to the teacher: The attached papers belong to a group of students that talked and chose not to work even after I used the projector and explained the reading. There were some funny moments. One boy today was wearing socks he was extremely proud of. They were a leopard print and he was wearing house slippers and shorts. The girls liked the socks and he told me that was his motive behind wearing them. Another boy was working on his paragraphs and instead of writing " endangered species" he wrote about the "endengered spices". I started laughing and asked, "What endangered spices are you referring to? Oregeno? Parsley?" The class started laughing and so did he. Yes, he quickly changed what he was writing. Another just made up some random stuff that was nowhere in the reading to include quoting Allstate insurance. It was crazy! But at least this class made me laugh before my lazy group came in for the day. It was also interesting to me that the Special Ed teacher came in and mentioned that if a particular student had a problem in class today to send him to her. I thought for sure I knew which student it would be but I was wrong. The boy she was talking about was perfectly fine for me. The other boys I THOUGHT, were not even in special education classes. I secretly love when this happens because bar is always set so low for students in special education. But the last couple of teaching assignments I've had, the students in special education were the best!