Not Today

there are a couple reasons why i would really like to cry right now. i won't...i can't let myself. i just got back in my room after a meeting and a full day of completely terrile behavior. maybe i'm setting my standards too high. maybe i expect too much. i don't know. i don't think i do. i walked over to my desk and found a note that said, "I think i need to go to the nurse tomorrow. my aunt died and i can't get over it." it said more but that just broke my heart. 3rd grade. i'm glad this student knows that she's not handling the grief well and i hope we can get it taken care of. the other thing that broke my heart was another note i found from a student. i don't usually have notes. today, however, i was pissed and made our classroom a quiet classroom. any talking earned a detention. obviously...i was pissed. anyway, the second note was a note from a student who earlier in the week had called me "mean." i am...mean. but i thought it best to confront the situation and get it taken care of. obviously that's not respectful. so when i asked the student if she had anything to say to me, she started bawling and apologizing. i made her tell me why she was apologizing. she told me the truth. i asked her how she was going to fix it and she said she would write me a letter. that's the letter i found. it told me she was sorry and the last line said, "...and i know why i've been acting bad it's cause i don't have no medicine." the spelling was worse and it was all crammed together into about 2 inches but that made me so sad. that she doesn't realize she can actually change her behavior. there are some students who can't. there are some students who act and don't think, whether from blind ignorance or from something else but this girl, she could control it, i think. and instead she's already convinced that when she doesn't take her meds, she won't have good behavior. *sigh* there is this quote that i have to lock in my brain and remember. "Once you start blaming yourself for deaths that aren't your fault, my friend that's a slippery slope that you can't come back from. I've seen it ruin a hell of a lot of doctors, and I won't let it happen to you." and that's how i think about teaching. once i start blaming myself for problems that are out of my control, that is a slippery slope and something i can't come back from. i can't change the world. but i can do something and that's better than nothing i think. so, i won't cry. because i don't. because only one tear duct actually works and also because i have too many other things to do. but inside, i'm crying just alittle. and maybe it would do good to let that out...but not today.

simply dumb

honestly, why are book reports such a big deal? what do they really teach students about life? they make them read...or that's what they're designed to do. but what is the point? they read a book, or look at the back cover, and they write it down. so why do teachers get all crazy about their book reports? why do they get so anal, as if the book reports will someday help their kids get into college? shouldn't i be focusing on getting the kids to read books on their level instead of reading crappy short books that they can finish quickly? it's almost like choosing how you do book reports is choosing a political party. you can be a once a week person and those people fight to the death with the people that are once a monthers. some are a page in length, handwritten. some are typed, half page. seriously? why do i have to decide now? and i understand consistency but...cut me some slack here! i might try something and if it doesn't work i might change it. that's how i roll. but why, oh freaking why, fellow teachers, is there such territorial madness over them? dumb. simply dumb.

Thank goodness for that.

I guess I never really thought I had trouble taking criticism. It's always been something that I've thought I could just learn from and then go on. Maybe that's changing. Maybe I'm changing. There are all these people who are so willing to help me...give me suggestions...tell me how they've done things in the past. I shouldn't take it personally. They're not meaning to offend. They want to help...I think. It's just...I kinda want to make my own mistakes. I kinda want to do things the hard way sometimes. Yeah, I want help and I want suggestions but I also want to do things my way. I want a little of both. One of the teachers has some "management strategies" for during our reading time. That's teacher lingo for "you can't get your kids to behave so here's what I would do." It makes me feel ineffective. It makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing...and it's true...I don't know...but I just like to figure it out as I go along sometimes. I think there needs to be a balance...some help...some personal mistakes. That's what makes a well-seasoned teacher. I wish I didn't hate to hear from her what I'm doing wrong. I wish I could take it and apply it and get over myself. Well seasoned teacher? Yeah, I'm getting there.

The saddest part about my life these days is that I...well...I don't have one. All my blogs...they're all about teaching stuff. I get up in the morning and go to school, I get out at night and go home to an apartment full of unfinished teacher stuff. I talked to this kid the other...a guy from college I guess...not a kid. He made me feel like crap, all talking about how I don't have a life because I'm aa teacher. It started out by him asking me if I was dating someone. That's always a conversation that I try my best to avoid. I just...I don't need that added stress...that added pressure. And then I started thinking that I really don't have a life and I really don't meet guys. But I have the rest of my life to do that right? Sure. I only have one first year as a teacher...and thank goodness for that.

on being me

the last two weeks i've been going home stressed and tired and just very frustrated. i've been feeling like i've spent all my day yelling at kids and correcting kids. and really i think i have spent most of my day doing those things. last night i did some thinking and i realized that i haven't been teaching MY style. i've been looking at teachers around me. i've been trying to be like them because they have great control over their classes. but i realized that it just doesn't work for me. i want my students to respect me and i think they will even if i'm not spending my day yelling. so today i talked calmly. i used a quiet voice. and suprisingly the students still listened. maybe that's because it was a half day. maybe it's because i took some medicine for my headache but maybe, just maybe, it's because i've spent the last 2 weeks trying to be someone i simply am not. this was a hard and frustrating lesson and i'm sure i'll have to learn it again in the future but today i sit at this computer, not completely frustrated and at my wits end but feeling secure in the fact that i think maybe someone was able to learn today and i think, just maybe, i was able to be me...a teacher...a good one...and me.

The First Day I Yelled at Them

if i had to pick a worst teaching day, i think it might be today. it's moments like these, the ones that happened throughout the day, that make me believe, absolutely, that children, some children, NEED meds. And it was very apparently that some of mine were not on theirs today. It made my day crazy and pretty terrible actually. Kids spilling paint in the art room, sticking their fingers in their paint trays, giving themselves tatoos with markers, throwing paper airplanes in my classroom, eating plastic...seriously, you name it, they did it today. I was pissed. I yelled more than I think I ever have. And I'm okay with that. They deserved it. I'm all about Jim Fay at times...love and logic. But there are moments when that doesn't work...or when it would take too long or when I just don't have the patience. Today was one of those days. It makes me wonder what I am doing wrong in my classroom. I KNOW they get tired of hearing me talk about procedures and how to do things. But something must be going on, somehow they're not getting it. I've changed seating arrangements twice already...and we've only been in school 7 days. I'd love to blame the kids...but it's not just them. *sigh* If it wasn't friday, I don't know how I would make it.