It Was a VERY LONG Week

I think the kids took crazy pills this week at school.  I  haven't had such a difficult week behavior-wise in a couple of years.  Student A was suspended from school for a knock-down, drag-out physical fight, spent a n day on "in-school" suspension, and came back into the classroom on Tuesday.  He was in no emotional/mental state to be in the classroom, and I had to remove him  Tuesday.  On Wednesday he managed to stay in the classroom, but I had to file an "incident" report.  On Thursday I was out of the classroom because I am on a district committee that's rewriting the language arts curriculum and my sub had to send him to the principal's office.  Meanwhile Student B was out of control in the classroom on Monday, so I wrote him up and called home.  On Tuesday, I had to write him up again and he spent lunch with the principal.  Also on Tuesday, Student B and Student C had a food fight in the cafeteria because Student D told them too!  Then on Wednesday, Student C and Student A got into a loudly vehement disagreement over whether or not the classroom window should be open.  As I said, it was a crazy week.  Kids really feed off negative energy, even more so than positive energy.  I know that they all were hoping we'd get a snowstorm (the remnants of the massive storm that hit the mid East coast) so storm energy was in the mix too.  Unfortunately we just got snow showers.   I did make some phone calls to parents and I did threaten to make a few more calls, so by Friday, things were much calmer.  I was thinking somehow that it was me but when just about every other teacher experienced a similar week, I decided that it was just one of those weeks.
We have one more week before winter break, so I'm hoping we contain the energy a little bit longer. 

Routine

I think I am getting acclimated once again to the rhythm of the school day. The clock radio turns at 4:50 am and I am greeted by my local NPR station with the middle of an interview with an author from India, or a with a singer from Africa, or some other fascinating artist from some exotic place. I can't seem to get the alarm set so I can hear the whole of the interview, but that would probably mean having to set the alarm closer to 4:30 and I don't want to do that! My husband and I have a pretty set routine. I go brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom while he shaves upstairs. Then I go start the coffee, make my lunch, and feed the bird while he showers. Then it's my turn in the shower, and by 5:30 he's half-way through his breakfast, and I'm sitting down at the computer screen with my first cup of coffee. He leaves for work about 5:40 and I read my email and various blogs, do a couple of quick chores, and then have my breakfast. I'm out the door headed toward school by 6:20 most days (though the past week, it's been more like 6:30). I have only a short drive so I'm usually in my classroom by 6:45 which gives me a good 40 minutes of prep except on bus duty days. Then it's nonstop teaching from 7:25 until 12:35. No breaks. I'm fortunate that the restroom is literally across the hall, so I can dart in there between classes. We have a nutty schedule that doesn't include passing time between classes. The kids are scheduled for hour long classes and the next class begins the same time the first one ends. In reality we give them about 3 minutes to make the transition, though this year's group is taking 5 minutes to walk diagonally across a 6 foot hall from one classroom to the next. We're working on transitions! Then it's my uninterrupted lunch for 30 minutes, and planning time. We're back with the kids for the tail end of the day, and then they leave the building at 2:12. I usually have a couple meetings after school every week, and on Mondays and Wed. I work in my classroom til 4:30. Then I head for the next town and the "wellness center" for 45 minutes of water aerobics. On most Tuesdays I leave school at 3:30 and go up to the pool for 30 minutes of laps. I get home on non pool days between 4:30-5 and on pool days anywhere from 5-6:30. Then it's dinner, dishes, chores, and finally I can sit down and relax about 8 pm. Then it's bed by 10 and the whole routine starts up again at 4:45 am.

So, I love days like today.(even after spending almost an hour and half last night creating my sub plans for today.) I am headed to a workshop (Alternative assessments for the state big ticket test) in the small city nearby. I have to be there at 9 am. That means that I got to sleep a little later, and I can actually find some time to blog. I even have a load of laundry going. The end of the day will still be long. Since it's a Wed. I'll meet my husband at 4:30 to head over to the pool for our water aerobics class, and it will be 7 before we sit down to dinner. But for a few short minutes, I can step out of my routine.

That's nice

A Not-So-Wonderful-Week

Just some of the week's notable moments:

**Two parents publicly bashing our team in general, and some individual teachers specifically, saying we don't do enough for their children

**Recording an awful lot of D's and F's on report cards - due to the fact that some of our students refuse to do any work either in school or out of school

**Ten students (out of 19) not putting their names on their paper

**Only 30% of a class completed a reading assignment (10 pages in 2 nights)

**A student erased a note in his planner that Mom never saw


These are the kind of weeks that make me question whether or not I can make it another 5 years.

It kind of overshadowed the excitement and joy of the election.

Not much happening in this corner of the world

For a short, easy school week, it felt quite long. It started with a 4 day weekend - Nov 9 was a "comp" day to make up for all the hours we put in for parent conferences and Monday was Veterans' Day. On Tuesday we had a regular school day and then held parent conferences until 7 pm. Wed-Friday we took our 6th graders to a terrific outdoor educational school - Boston University's Sargent Center --- for 3 days of great outdoor experiences. Unfortunately for the kids, Thursday was a day of torrential rain. Friday was sunny but wintery --- temps in the high 30's. They had a blast despite being soaked on Thursday and chilly on Friday!

Today was a chore day at home - it doesn't look like we did a lot, but much of it was "behind the scenes". In other words, we went through some storage areas and threw out a ton of stuff that we'd accumulated over 30 years. I also got several loads of laundry done, went to a Weight Watchers' meeting (I lost over 6 pounds!!!), and completed some paperwork that needed attention.


Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving service at church, church council meeting, and then in the evening is our community's Interfaith Thanksgiving service. That's a tradition that goes back about 30 years and rotates between 3 churches. Tomorrow night's service is hosted by my church. The service is well-attended and is led by our local UCC churches, our local Catholic church, our local Jewish leader, an Islamic leader, and the local Friends' meeting. Last year, in the absence of a pastor from our church, I was part of the leadership. This year all I have to do is provide the Spanish translations for the benediction. . . .

El Senor te bendiga y te guarde
May the Lord bless you and keep you.

El Senor te mire con agrado y te extienda su amor
May the Lord make his countenance shine upon you and be gracious to you

El Senor te muestre su favor y te conceda la paz.
May the Lord turn his countenance upon you and give you peace.

This and That - No Particular Order

I finally finished clue 2 of the MysteryStole 3. At this rate, I'll still be knitting it in January. I am enjoying it a lot, although I spend as much time frogging and tinking as I do knitting.

School is in full swing. I really like my kids this year! They are kind, cooperative, and seem to be enthusiastic about school, and they even follow directions!! Every few years you get a class like this - and they make up for the ones that are really difficult. I've got 38 sixth graders that I share with another teacher. He teaches math and science, and I teach social studies and reading/language arts. So far, so good. Tomorrow night is Open House, which is REALLY early this year.

We've been having a time trying to get a new TV installed. I purchased a flat screen HD TV on August 13th and since then have been trying to get it set up. We've been customers of one satellite company for many years but decided to switch companies in order to take advantage of a $300 discount on the TV. The installer has cancelled twice on us and we spent 2.5 hours on the phone Sat. trying to find out why no one had shown up as scheduled on try #3. When we finally got through to someone, we were told that the installer had had an illness, and we were being rescheduled again, for another couple of weeks hence. We decided to take everything back to the store and start again. (We were worried that if the TV didn't work right, we wouldn't be able to return things since the 30 day money back guarantee deadline was looming). To make a long story a little shorter, we returned everything but the TV, were able to keep the $300 discount, and we're staying with our original satellite provider. Of course, now we have to wait and see how long it takes them to get out to us!!