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!