Teaching Is A Life Ruiner
But not really in a good way.
So, Thursday afternoon I was doing my attendance and a new name showed up on my roster for first block. I sighed to myself because first block is precarious because I have two students in there who require a lot of handling and I was afraid this new student would fall into that category, making life harder for me.
Boy did I anticipate correctly.
So, a few minutes into the start of first block yesterday, the kids were awesomely and quietly doing their daily Ev'ry Day Edit (where they correct the spelling and grammar of a badly written paragraph), when there was a ridiculous pounding on the door. Like . . . ridiculous.
So, I go over and open it and the door is jammed but there's a super angry boy out there cussing at someone else to let him into the room. My guess is that this security guard was trying to prevent him from going in but I had no idea because no one bothered to tell me so I was trying to let him in (and I thought it was just another kid obstructing the door.) So this kid is cussing and yelling and I tell him, sarcastically, "Wow, this is a really nice introduction. I'm so glad to meet you today." Which, by the way, I need to remember: Watch who you are sarcastic with.
Anyway, this is the same kid who showed up on my roster on Thursday. "Fuck", I thought. "This is not good." He pushes his way in and goes and finds a seat in the room. Another security guard knocks to come in and to pull this new student out. He goes out and it's great. But . . . once the door is shut there's a whole lot of cussing, a whole lot of screaming, a whole lot of pounding.
He's pounding doors, he's pounding on lockers, he actually (as I learned later, as I opened the door for second block) punches his fist through the wall outside my classroom.
I'm not kidding you. It took ten minutes to get him out of that hall. My students are looking at me and one of them is like, "Ms. Kelly, is his in our class?" and another is like, "Ms. Kelly, if he's in this class on Monday, I'm walking out." I have a feeling he won't be back but I'll certainly protest against it if he is because, um, no. i can deal with angry kids but not kids who get violent when they get angry.
So, that happened.
And then . . . Just after my kids got focuses to do their editing, what happens? The principal comes over the loadspeaker declaring that we're now in a lockdown. So, lights off, windows covered, kids "quiet". Yeah right. My kids just witnessed, first hand, what just happened with that new student and now we're in a lock down?
Apparently there was a robbery at the nearby Family Dollar store (cheap robbers) and one of the robbers was thought to be armed so . . . Lock down.
I will say that my class, considering how they normally behave and considering what they had seen that morning, did really well in the lock down (though our building administrator had to ask them to be quiet which certainly doesn't reflect well on me). But there was really no getting them back on task after that. They did, eventually, finish their edit, but we kind of chilled out the rest of the class period. We did one assignment I had planned on for our new unit, but I pushed the rest back to Monday. Because . . . yeah. First block was ridiculous.
Interestingly, second block mostly went better than it normally does (a few of my big talkers didn't show up).
Interesting Friday and not even why teaching is a life ruiner.
What sucks is that I was so tired last night from the day and from the week (and because I had stayed up late to watch USA vs. Canada on at 11 on ESPN2 because I can't resist Hope Solo's siren call), I fell asleep before nine. And, because I crashed so early, it's now 6:19 in the morning and I'm wide awake and relating my crazy Friday adventures for you.
This is my life?!
I did go out to the bar after school with two other teachers who I haven't had the chance to interact with much. I might have plans today with another friend and her friends, so I slightly have a life.
But still. My sleep schedule is for shit on weekends.
Why can't my life be dictated by a good kind of life ruiner? Like Hope Solo and the USWNT? Who won't be playing again until November?
So, Thursday afternoon I was doing my attendance and a new name showed up on my roster for first block. I sighed to myself because first block is precarious because I have two students in there who require a lot of handling and I was afraid this new student would fall into that category, making life harder for me.
Boy did I anticipate correctly.
So, a few minutes into the start of first block yesterday, the kids were awesomely and quietly doing their daily Ev'ry Day Edit (where they correct the spelling and grammar of a badly written paragraph), when there was a ridiculous pounding on the door. Like . . . ridiculous.
So, I go over and open it and the door is jammed but there's a super angry boy out there cussing at someone else to let him into the room. My guess is that this security guard was trying to prevent him from going in but I had no idea because no one bothered to tell me so I was trying to let him in (and I thought it was just another kid obstructing the door.) So this kid is cussing and yelling and I tell him, sarcastically, "Wow, this is a really nice introduction. I'm so glad to meet you today." Which, by the way, I need to remember: Watch who you are sarcastic with.
Anyway, this is the same kid who showed up on my roster on Thursday. "Fuck", I thought. "This is not good." He pushes his way in and goes and finds a seat in the room. Another security guard knocks to come in and to pull this new student out. He goes out and it's great. But . . . once the door is shut there's a whole lot of cussing, a whole lot of screaming, a whole lot of pounding.
He's pounding doors, he's pounding on lockers, he actually (as I learned later, as I opened the door for second block) punches his fist through the wall outside my classroom.
I'm not kidding you. It took ten minutes to get him out of that hall. My students are looking at me and one of them is like, "Ms. Kelly, is his in our class?" and another is like, "Ms. Kelly, if he's in this class on Monday, I'm walking out." I have a feeling he won't be back but I'll certainly protest against it if he is because, um, no. i can deal with angry kids but not kids who get violent when they get angry.
So, that happened.
And then . . . Just after my kids got focuses to do their editing, what happens? The principal comes over the loadspeaker declaring that we're now in a lockdown. So, lights off, windows covered, kids "quiet". Yeah right. My kids just witnessed, first hand, what just happened with that new student and now we're in a lock down?
Apparently there was a robbery at the nearby Family Dollar store (cheap robbers) and one of the robbers was thought to be armed so . . . Lock down.
I will say that my class, considering how they normally behave and considering what they had seen that morning, did really well in the lock down (though our building administrator had to ask them to be quiet which certainly doesn't reflect well on me). But there was really no getting them back on task after that. They did, eventually, finish their edit, but we kind of chilled out the rest of the class period. We did one assignment I had planned on for our new unit, but I pushed the rest back to Monday. Because . . . yeah. First block was ridiculous.
Interestingly, second block mostly went better than it normally does (a few of my big talkers didn't show up).
Interesting Friday and not even why teaching is a life ruiner.
What sucks is that I was so tired last night from the day and from the week (and because I had stayed up late to watch USA vs. Canada on at 11 on ESPN2 because I can't resist Hope Solo's siren call), I fell asleep before nine. And, because I crashed so early, it's now 6:19 in the morning and I'm wide awake and relating my crazy Friday adventures for you.
This is my life?!
I did go out to the bar after school with two other teachers who I haven't had the chance to interact with much. I might have plans today with another friend and her friends, so I slightly have a life.
But still. My sleep schedule is for shit on weekends.
Why can't my life be dictated by a good kind of life ruiner? Like Hope Solo and the USWNT? Who won't be playing again until November?