Sundays

Sunday nights usually stress me out. I'm always worried about Monday and how the week is going to go. This weekend, I got my lesson plans early and my goal for next week is to plan reading for the next few weeks so I don't have to worry as much. Special Ed still hasn't come for my interesting friend that needs help so desperately and another friend is being overmedicated and cries all day. I honestly don't know what do anymore with the kids, they are so bad. New Teacher Academy does help but I feel like every day they get a little more out of control. I'm seriously thinking about quitting teaching alltogether. I know that just because these kids are low income and come from very bad home lives, they need teachers too. I just don't feel like I'm equipped enough to handle their violent outburts and manage behavior.

Another Day

I survived another day in the classroom today. Troubled Child had an episode and slapped another student so we had to arrange a time-out. I let TC back in and we had been on the carpet for about 5 minutes when she said, "I need to f-in iron my shirt" and took her jacket off, laid it on the floor and proceeded to kick everyone else out of the way while she pretended to iron her jacket. I relocated her and we had another pencil stabbing incident so she spent the remainder of the day across the hall. Another friend decided he didn't need his pants after using the bathroom and walked out in his uniform jacket and thermal underwear. After redirecting him to the bathroom, another friend decided to pull his pants down, revealing plaid boxers, so the whole episode was recreated yet again. Tomorrow is Wednesday so more than likely I should survive this week with minimal blood pressure spikes.

Teaching vs. Stay At Home Dog Parent

Reasons I'd much rather stay at home and be a pet parent to my dogs instead of chasing kindergartners all day long:

1. When I tell my dogs to sit, they sit. They don't say "Oh my God girl you ain't fixin to tell me where to sit!"

2. My dogs have never tried to stab anyone with a pencil.

3. My dogs do not hit or kick me.

4. My dogs go outside to pee. They don't stand there in the middle of the classroom where there is a bathroom 25 feet away and proclaim, "I'm using it" as pee runs all over the floor.

5. My dogs don't try to steal everything that's not nailed down or locked up.

Reasons I can't stay home and be a pet parent my dogs all day long:

1. Bills

2. If I can make a difference in the lives of at least a few in my class, then I've done my job.

Enough said.

Rockin the boat

I sat down to write lesson plans and I got halfway through before I decided to take a break. Reading is always the most tedious to write and it's done so that's good enough for me. I honestly am sick to my stomach dreading going back to school on Tuesday. There are some things going on that are beyond my control and I get no support in dealing with them. I can't really rock the boat with the school board because I need to keep my job so I'm between a rock and a hard place on this one. The school I'm at is not the right place for me but God sent me there for a reason and I have a job to do. It can only go up from here so I'm going to continue to pray that I see some changes really soon.

Survival

I made it through my first week with my new class. Barely. The other teacher apparently hasn't been doing too much with them and it's been a struggle but each day it slowly gets a little better. I have five more days until a little break for MLK day so I'm just going to try and push through this week. This class is unlike anything I've ever seen. It's in an extremely low income area so I've had to deal with cussing and physical fights breaking out. I've stood my ground pretty well and I know this is an adjustment for them so hopefully we can accomplish a lot this week.