Almost Christmas...
Wow.. it's almost been a month since I last posted?! It feels like it was just a week or two ago..It's now count down to the holidays. 5 more school days left before we have a glorious two week free of ...
School this past week and the week to come have/will be like a ZOO. The kids are EXTREMELY excited about the holidays.. and it's as if someone opened all the cage doors and let the animals OUT. I really felt like that on Thursday during our indoor noon hour (OMG.. indoor recess AND lunch was He**). Kids were all over the place.. loud.. hyper.. bouncing.. I felt like I was escaping into the safety of the staff room!
This coming week is basically a write off. Probably won't get a whole lot out of them because they just can't sit still for 2 minutes. The other day, I, yes I, staged a walk out on them. I wasn't really actually THAT annoyed with them, but I wanted to see if it would work. I told them that I was very frustrated and I needed a break from them, so I left the room. Their first reaction was "_____, it's all your fault!" and then they proceeded to start arguing. 2 minutes later, myself and my colleague across the hall saw the door shut. She went in and gave them a good talking to about how they are NOT suppose to close the door, only teachers are allowed to do that and that they need to LISTEN and be RESPECTFUL. Anyhow, our minds are constantly boggled at how little these children know about manners and respect.
What really irks me is that I happen to know that there are schools out there, in the district, that have MUCH more support than we do. We are basically an inner-city school, high needs children and little support. There are other schools out there, whose "modified" students (students who are on special education plans (known as SEPs) who are not just on accommodated programs, but MODIFIED programs) are considered "average" when compared to the general population of our school. I have a transfer student who is running at a higher level than some of my students who are NOT on SEPs! She came from a school that basically had a TA (Teacher's assistant) in each classroom. WHY DO WE ONLY HAVE 1.5 TAs on our floor!??!! We have a grade 4 classroom that has about 18 SEP students (out of 23!) and a class with 2-3 students who are VIOLENT, as in punching fellow students in front of a teacher! It's ridiculous! Our school also does not have a PALs program (which is when a company "sponsors" a school by sending in their employees once a week to run programs for high risk students - basically mentoring them) and we are not allowed to go out and ask for sponsorship. A school this large with the kind of population we serve not having these basic resources.. ridiculous and completely unacceptable.
The other thing that ticks me off is that our school budget was cut this year. They took those funds and turned them into something called an ILF grant (Innovative learning fund) where we've got to apply in order to get the money back. Most of the ILF grants have gone to schools in Moncton.. so we are basically giving our money to Moncton schools. ARGH. Anyways, if anyone has any great ideas for something innovative that has to do with Smart Boards, let me know.. I really want to apply and get one into my classroom.. permanently!
Anyhow, that's my rant for now. With contract negotiations about to happen in February, we've been warned about speaking out to the media. They only said that we were allowed to tell our friends and family.. and that that may be the only way we can try to get our voices heard.. sad eh?
Yesterday was our staff party.. wow.. I never anticipated teacher's to be so WILD. I think they were only just getting started when I left around 11.. but boy, can some of them party. Dancing in the windows and everything. I had actually been dreading the whole event as I heard that in previous years, people were extremely drunk and crazy, but it actually turned out to be an enjoyable evening. Hung out with my group of teacher friends and left at a half decent hour.. (I've been fighting a cold for the past week so I was quite tired last night).
Alright. I am going to stop here. I've got to get cracking on some things. I'm taking part in a bake swap (12 people participating, everyone bakes 11 batches of something and each person switches their baked goods with what everyone else baked). I am only going to say, this is the first and last time I will do this. Too time consuming, cost of ingredients sucks, AND.. what am I going to do with 11 batches of cookies?! (I'm planning to give them away :P)
If I don't post before Christmas, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. May the new year bring some peace into this world. Lastly, as we sometimes tell our students: "Tell someone something that you appreciate about them today!"
posted by jaryee @ 4:53 p.m.
3 Comments:
Send the cookies over... I dont mind consuming it for you.. lol..cheers!!
lol.. they might be a bit rock solid by the time they fly, sail and drive over there :P Or maybe they'll be melted....
Those teachers sound like my kind of people!
I want to party with them.
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