This week has been an interesting adventure.  On Tuesday we started the school week with two classes on lockdown for their behavior- they are not allowed to leave their homeroom all day, rather the teachers come and teach them.  Downside of this- one of the classes is in my homeroom and I don’t have them during the day, only for the first 30 minutes of the day.  So yesterday and today I have been lugging around my papers, books for reading classes, and handouts for class from class to class while trying to find an open classroom for the students I am suppose to be teaching that period.  Regardless, its a very annoying situation to be in and hopefully tomorrow or Friday I will finally have my classroom back.  I feel awkward being in another teacher’s classroom, sitting at their desk or using their markers for the board.  I also feel weird because three of the classrooms I am now going to have higher walls and my voice echos.  Its quite annoying and loud.

On the plus side, 50 of my students had a social studies test on Ancient Egypt today and unlike my last exam I don’t want to scream at them “WHY DIDN’T YOU STUDY?!?!?!?!?”.  My last test at least 20 students received a D or an F (which lead to me making them make up tests to earn back points), where this test I only have 8 as of now.  Thats a HUGE improvement, especially for my lower class.  In other exciting news, I have one student who has several disabilities and a long IEP that I have to follow.  On his test today they had to complete map skills and after his aid read him the directions and problems for the first 4 map skill questions, he completed the next 4 by himself- CORRECTLY!  He didn’t have her read the questions, he didn’t ask for help, he just read the questions and answered correctly!  This makes my day.  He is improving and hey, maybe I’m starting to finally figure out this whole teaching world after all.

But, its almost Friday.  Which means I get to see my sister, her hubby, and my adorable nieces and nephews.  Let the weekend begin now please:o)

Nothing makes a stressful week and a day that included 5 fights better then coming home, seeing my grandparents, and eating some home cooking:o)  Yum.  Happy Friday Everyone.

I still find it extremly hard to believe that it is October 16th.  As in halfway through October.  Which means that it is almost November and then it will be Christmas.  And it means that in two weeks my first quarter at my school will be done.  I find it hard to believe that I am in this spot- that I am teaching my kids, going crazy over my kids, and am now an adult with a big girl job.  Last night I was able to take a break from grading and school and spend some quality time with one of my girlfriends at a hockey game (yes, an OSU hockey game).  It was so nice to just sit down, relax, and not think about what papers I need to grade or lessons I need to plan.  Sometimes doing something as simple as watching boys beat eachother up in hockey can be the best night of the week.

In other news, I am starting a war against my former employer (the daycare I worked at for one week).  During the past week I have attempted to deposite my paycheck 4 times, but each time the bank tells me there is no money in their account.  So, after talking to someone today AGAIN for the 3rd time, I decided that if I don’t hear anything by Monday, I’m going to call the department of labor.  It isn’t something I really want to do as I hate confrontations beyond belief… but, my teacher clothing fund is low and needs to be replaced:o)

5 things that happened this week that made my day:

1.  Hockey games and catching up with a good friend

2.  No kids at school today:o)

3.  I had a student say thank you this week

4.  My assistant-superintendent and I had a life chat for 30 minutes.  He then said I was doing a great job at school.

And #5, which is the best thing that happened this week:

I was able to talk to a girl who struggles (emotionally, mentally, has been abused, etc) for 15 minutes yesterday before school.  This is a girl who has repeatedly acted out in my class and as I was walking towards my room and she was going to ISS (in school suspension), she told me to have a nice day.  This is huge- the fact that she talked to me about her life shows that she is growing and that hey, maybe I’m not that scary of a teacher and some of my students may actually like me as well as respect me.

This week I’ve been trying to change my attitude at school, or well, change my yelling.  I yell too much, too often, and I hate the way my students complain “you always yell at us”.  I’m struggling because still my students don’t always take me seriously and their behavioral problems are quite serious.  In the past 3 days alone, 10 kids have been suspended.  Today was our first time having an in-school suspension system (thank goodness) and 15 kids were in it due to their poor behavior yesterday.  I keep trying, but I just feel sometimes that I am failing.

On the plus side, I ate lunch with some of my 6th grade students.  They are one of my stronger classes, both academically and behaviorally and just overall great kids.  So, instead of sitting in my room grading papers, I got to talk about their families, likes, and many other things.  It was a good day:o)

…how to break up a fight between two girls on the playground (which is really dirt and cement), while pulling/ripping eachother’s hair out.

And that was the second fight of the day.

I just got my first big girl paycheck.  Hello weekend:o)

I swear I really don’t have anything to wear to school today.  Especially since I am washing three possible shirts at 6:30 am.

I promise I will be doing actual laundry tonight.

This was the first full week of teaching (5  days, 6 periods a day), and although I survived it was quite an interesting adventure.  I survived open house, where I met many parents who demonstrated their concern for their child’s grade.  I survived interims, where I have in every class more then 1 kid failing, and most of those kids not caring that they fail.  And in one day, I survived 3 fights and 1 “mosh pit” after a student decided to turn off the hallway lights. One of these fights occurred because a girl put her book on another girl’s desk, another occurred in the boys’ bathroom, probably over something trivial like toilet paper or washing their hands in a certain sink.  But I did survive and now I’m planning for another week.

This week will be interesting as I am going to be observed by a guy who works for our schools to see how my discipline in the classroom is going.  Which, it is going pretty bad- my kids don’t take me seriously, they really act like I’m basically a joke because they do not respect me.  I’m trying to change that, but no matter what, they are constantly disrespectful.  Hopefully this will work and they will start to respect me because honestly, yelling at my students to be quite and spending most of my time discipling the students as oppose to teaching the students is going to make for a long, long year. So fingers crossed that I will also survive this week.

I was trying to teach my students today what a neutral country was, as we are reading a book about the conflict/civil war in Cambodia after 1975.  I ask my kids: “What do you think the word neutral means?”

Student A:  “You mean like if I’m driving my car and I put it in neutral and it just stops and mad people honk at me and I’m like whoa get out of my way!”

Student B: “Yeah yeah neutral with your car.  Yeah.  But it has to be a sweet car”.

So today I taught about neutrality with states by using cars as an example.  Cambodia turned into an RV with lots of beds to fit everyone in Cambodia, Vietname and Russia would have their “communist” cars and the US would have some crazy car with nukes (as my one student explained it).

Yes, class was quite interesting and it was only 9:45 in the morning.

Today has been an awesome Saturday.  I “slept” in till 7:30 (stupid birds outside of my window), ran some errands, did some shopping, and enjoyed some Starbucks.  But, now I will spend the rest of the day cramming.  Not for a class or assignment, but on my students.  I have about 150 students who live in a nasty part of Columbus.  Of these students, 99% of them receive free lunch and breakfast, 40% are Somalian immigrants, and a majority of them live with either a single parent, relative, or in a foster home.  Looking at my life growing up in a suburban area with low poverty and a middle class mentality, I really don’t know or understand the life my students go through.  Yes, I grew up with a single parent but I didn’t have to start washing my own clothes when I was in the third grade or have to save up pennies to buy my own deodorant.  I didn’t have to drive to school wondering if I was going to see a dead body at a crime scene, which happened to some of my students this week.  So I have begun my research.  I found a book at B&N today written by an African-America woman that teaches white teachers like myself how to teach African-American students.  How to approach the classes so that I don’t 1. seem like a racist and 2. let typical stereotypes get in the way.  I am also starting to do more and more rearch on Somalia and Muslim tradiations by reading and asking the Somalian teachers at my school.  I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe I can reach my kids a little bit more if I can demonstrate to them that although I haven’t been through their life, I can still help them make it through their own.