Do We Deserve March Break??!
This winter, we've had MANY storm days.. so many that I've lost count. OK, it hasn't be 2 weeks worth of storm days, but it's been over 5 days at least. Makes me wonder whether we should even be taking another week off when we've missed so many days of school already...
Looking at my calendar in March.. oh my my my. My kids are going to think I've abandoned them. I was out doing a collaborative planning session on Tuesday morning and when I returned at lunch time, I ended up in the middle of a class hug. It was very sweet that they missed me, but at the same time, it's sometimes a little unnerving because you never know which of the darlings has critters in their hair....
Anyhow, I've got another 3 collaborative planning sessions, 1 full day of planning for a open house at our school, 1 day for observing another teacher at another school and 2 days of either planning or observing someone else. Don't forget, we also have next week off because of March break AND Good Friday & Easter Monday both fall in March this year. I will not be teaching a full week at all this coming month.
The downside to March is that our next round of report cards is around the corner. One big reason as to why I haven't written too much lately. I've been spending most of my time gearing up for report cards. So far, I've only gotten behaviour and math comments written.. next to come is marking their writing and inputting grades. UGH. I hate marking their writing.. it's soooooooooo painful.
The other day, one of my students came up to me and said "Ms. Tan, my hair grew this much (about 2-3 inches) last night." LOL. As a teacher, it is critical to learn to keep a straight face. There are times when you find yourself willing yourself to keep a serious face because what the student has just done or said really makes you want to laugh, but it really isn't very acceptable behaviour.
Today, I had an incident where I was walking towards one of my kids who was being very hyper active while we were in an assembly. To get to him, I had to squeeze my way between the chairs and the wall. I stupidly bumped my knee into the heater while trying to get to him. So while I'm trying to tell him to settle down, he's saying "OH! Ms Tan, are you OK???".. ahhhhhhh .. how are you suppose to respond to that???
Anyways, I have a co-op student now and I can't tell you what a difference it makes. Just to be able to hand off things like mounting paper onto cardstock, dealing with bulletin boards, filling in hot lunch money forms, helping answer student questions during a test, photocopying.. it takes a huge load off my back. This is just in the mornings too! It just goes to show that we really are under-supported at school and that TA's are NOT "bandaids" (quoted from a district level supervisor.. he can go !@#)(!*@#)(!*@#)(!@*#)(!@*).
Speaking of such !@)#(!*@#, a few weeks ago, I took part in a Non-violent Physical Intervention crisis training course. The guy who was training was the above mentioned district level supervisor. I don't know if he forgot who he was training or whether he was just plain stupid, but he kept telling us stories like "once, we had a kid come to school with a knife...." US: UMMM.. ya, that kid went to OUR school. "Oh, and once we had a kid try to jump off the roof..." US: Ya, that kid also used to go to our school.... etc. It was extremely frustrating because he was trying to make up all these excuses as to why our school did not receive the TA's we should have. I mean, we have a kid in grade 1 who has MICROWAVED his CAT!! He threatens to KILL his teacher and has also threatened to kill other students! They have a PART TIME TA!!?!?!?! WHAT!? How does THAT work!?!? And the man says TAs are BAND AIDS?! WHAT!? TA's are god sends, TA's are like a lifeline! GAH!!!!! (OK, must stop talking about this before I really start getting into a HUGE rant.. and believe me, there has been a LOT to rant about lately...)
Ciao. To those that get it off, enjoy the March Break!
Just had to share this...
I gave them a math test today. To the question "write a story for the question 2X2=4" I got this:
Hi! I'm two, so am I! Want to do math? Yes! but after dinner, ok! La la la. Hi What's your name four, I'm two! I'm done dinner said two, great! Two this is four. Oh hi four. Hi, so let's do math said two. great idea said four. I love math. 2X2=4
(This is with a little bit of editing because some of the punctuation and spelling didn't make any sense)
Some of our students are just so out of it...
Another Storm...
I've lost count. We've had so many snow days this winter it's been pretty SWEET!!! I think the teachers were more excited than the students were yesterday. A huge discussion on the "Red Bar" in the staffroom yesterday at lunch. Even caught one of our VP's keeping an eye on the weather. We were all pretty thrilled to hear that the bar had 'grown' larger by the end of the day. HAHAHA!
Anyways, it's been a busy few weeks. I came down with some bug last week and was pretty miserable. Glad to report that it's gone and life resumes as normal.
The more encouraging news is that I have some release days coming up (release days are when we are able to have a Substitute Teacher in for us) to do some collaborative planning, to plan for a "Tribes" day (since we are the only "Tribes School" in the province, we'll be holding an open house in April and I'm on the planning committee) AND I have 2.5 more days of BTIP (Beginning Teachers Induction Program - they gave us 4 full days to do whatever we want - within reason). All these days being used before March 31st. I'm liking it. The only downfall is having to leave a plan for a substitute.. it's amazing how many tiny, tiny details we have to think about.. it's actually a lot of work.. as some people say, it would probably be easier for us to just go to work rather than do up sub plans.
I'm also hoping to find some time to apply for a Innovative Learning Fund in order to get myself a Smartboard. Since the district is not giving us squat these days, I have to find my own time to figure out how to get one. It's ridiculous.
The other day, I think a bunch of teachers were pretty frustrated (could have been the week of the full moon) and the topic came up that our school is a tough school.. there is another in the district that is very well known for being a rough school, worse than ours, but the huge bonus about their school is that they have Irving as their PALS company (so they get employees to go into the school to do activities with the students, they SPONSOR them - unlimited number of buses.. so field trip galore..etc.). Poor us. We don't even have enough TAs to support our serious behaviour students.
Get this. There is a student in grade 1 who MICROWAVED his CAT AND threatens to kill his teacher on a daily basis. He tried to stab another student with a pair of scissors (got caught before anything happened) and he only has a PART TIME TA. I'm INFURIATED. There are SO MANY cases like this in our school it's ridiculous. We don't get the support we need and the district justifies it by saying "We are here for academics". !@#)(!*@)#(*!@#)*@!# And we are suppose to teach how?!
Another rant I want to go on is about one of my students. He is one of my major behaviours.. in fact, I'd say he's the root of many of my behaviour students. He has already been suspended three times this year ... we also found out he tried to shake his puppy until they thought he'd broken the puppy's neck. When the parents took him to the doctor, the doctor said "He's just being a kid." WTF. Now, I am not really 100% sure whether the parents actually followed through on what they said, but there's just so much frustration on my end because I don't hear from them. I see no change in his behaviour AND he causes chaos in my classroom on a daily basis. UGH!
Anyhow, to balance of the negativity (probably won't balance, but hey, I'll try) in this post, I do have to say that I do love each and every single one of my students. Even the ones that wreck havoc. They all have this innocence about them that is very sweet and lovable. It never fails to astound me how they can be scolded by you one moment and still be giving you a hug and telling you that you are the best teacher in the world the next moment. It makes my job soooo worthwhile and fulfilling.
