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!
posted by jaryee @ 5:10 p.m.
1 Comments:
happy march BREAKING
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