better week and tales from the darkside

sexual innuendo boy was suspended. after a conference with him, myself, and the guidance counselor, i think he's clear on the issue and extremely apologetic. i'm somewhat confident this won't happen again.

my lessons have been going well since friday. i'm practically going broke purchasing candy for the students, but this is the self dubbed "candy unit." the kids are eagerly spending the first 45 minutes of each class learning and working out problems, just for 10 minutes of the candy inequality game in which they hold up a number in the solution set of a given inequality. if they are correct, they get a piece of candy tossed to them and if they are incorrect, they get a paper ball thrown at them. they all see to enjoy the game, especially when kids get hit with flying paper balls.

so last week was really bad and this week is better. that's the nature of this profession...

my principal nominated me for the teaching fellows ACE award again this year. my second application essay was rushed, as I submitted it at 11:59pm on the due date. but my resume is significantly more extensive and i'm much more involved in my school this year, so it might help. i could really use the money, i don't even care about the faux prestige!

and now for tales from the dark side (aka dean's office):
-today, after inappropriately touching two girls, a male student grabbed an iron bar in science lab and modeled it as his own penis and thrusted into the air telling the science teacher "isn't this what you do when you go home at night?"
-another student threatened a teacher and tried to throw punches at him, only to be intercepted by security just in time.
- yesterday two female students got into a fight in the main hallway over facebook comments. one girl was pulling the other's hair and when a teacher tried to intervene, the other girl literally climbed over the teacher, bashing her face in.

i have an insane number of kids currently on suspension or removal from class, about 10% of the school right now. my AP told me it gets very bad in the spring and if we crack down in march, it will be easier buckle down and the kids on board with their regent's work in april and may.

i'm also completely revolutionizing the detention system with a ton of resistance from the students. they don't want to serve their time because they hate it, which is leading to multiple suspensions. the administration is fully behind me and feels that students will adapt to the new system with time, which will ultimately lead to less detentions and suspensions in general.

how i know i'm *really* hated

i attended an inquiry meeting today instead of teaching (woohoo.) after a long day, i had to come back into work to catch up on some paperwork.

i walked into my classroom and almost started crying.

my box of crayons and markers was laying open and empty on a desk and the floor was covered with my uncapped markers, plus broken up little bits of crayons. and my floor was flooded with torn up little bits of paper, all coming from detention letters.

the kicker was that i know it couldn't have happened during advisory because the teacher that took over my advisory class would NEVER let the students leave the room looking like that. so i was able to identify that it was my 5th period class that did it-- which means they saved their detention letters for 2 hours in order to trash my room with them.

the sub isn't at fault at all. from what i can tell, she did a great job. i had her actually teaching my class something, at it seems that many of the students learned. something else i noticed when i walked in is that there were explanations and answers up on the board and textbooks all over so my classes were somewhat productive today.

but back to my trashed room... the initial shock wore off after about a minute and i started cleaning up. then a 10th grader (boy do i miss teaching those kids!) came in and when he saw the mess, he offered to clean my room in exchange for me knocking an hour off his detention, which i gladly accepted. (note to self: think of more duties i can have kids help me with in exchange for detention hours.)

lucky for this boy the janitor walked in about 3 minutes later so the job was easy. i profusely apologized to the janitor for the mess, but he was pretty rude to me. i understand why, but it still bothers me.

oh then my day got even worse. there's a relatively new boy in my school who has been completely disrespectful to me. i pulled him into the office to talk to him, tell him he's getting on my last nerve, that i'm willing to start anew with him, but next time he bothers me i'm not even going to give him a chance and i'll just suspend him...

so he seemed ok with everything. an hour later, when i left work he was waiting outside. he told me he wanted me to take him home with me and he wanted to be with me. asked if i had a husband, and other assorted nonsense. too bad he didn't do this in the school building because i would have sat him down, had him call his father and explain what he did, and suspended him for sexual innuendos.

i was nervous the boy was going to follow me home but he didn't.

i am calling his home tomorrow but i feel so goddamn defeated. EVERYTHING is getting to me! i think i'm more of a mess this week than i have ever ever been in my teaching career (all 18 months of it.) i am realizing though that my AP gets nearly as much crap from the kids as i do, but he lets it roll right off of him to the point where it amuses him-- and that discourages the kids. so i think i'll develop thicker skin from this, because i know myself and i always succeed at everything i try. i'll just have to adapt.

i feel like running away

the students hate me this year. i went from most loved to most hated very quickly. i suppose that means i can be loved again but right now it's bugging me.

i'm under so much pressure at work. i feel like i'm letting things slip past me and maybe i shouldn't care so much but i'm used to being 100% on top of things and in control.

something i haven't discussed thus far in this blog is my personal life. i won't go into detail, but my marriage has been in turmoil for a long time and it very well might be ending. but right now i'm feeling tortured and scared.

every week it seems a new babysitter cancels on me and i'm now in jeopardy of failing my grad school class because of attendance issues, even though i have the highest scores in the class.

i want to stay home and cry and hide. seriously.

but i cant.

spring break is coming but it's no vacation. it just means getting up early and taking care of my children, all the while fighting with my husband. i'd rather be at work than on break.

i need to manage my time better and get in control. i'm feeling extremely on edge and vulnerable right now. and i know i'm probably biting off more than i can chew at work, but to make matters worse i'm desperate for the money. i gave up one per session posting (only 4 hours a month) but i can't afford to take on less at this point.

I am a per session whore.

I would probably do best not to overwhelm myself in only my second year, however as my husband's pay has been seriously cut and we're struggling to make ends meet, I have happily stockpiled as many per session positions as I could get my hands on.

My extra duties go something like this every 2 weeks:

Extra math class I picked up: 4 hours
Running detention: 6 hours +
Data specialist: 4 hours
Coordinator of education plans: 1 hour

This leaves me with approximately $630 extra every 2 weeks.

Today I pitched an idea to my AP for an extra hour every week to work in a small group with the ESL students who miss a lot of my class due to mandated ESL work and he went for it. He liked it so much that he's asking one of the science teachers to do the same. I just have to find the time for it.

So now I'm going to be getting over $1400 per session a month. I'm such a whore.

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I started a project the day before break last week and have been continuing it this week. I forgot how much projects are a win-win situation! The kids enjoy doing them, while I don't need to make lesson plans or worry about teaching as they work together practically the entire period.

I'm ever so slightly ahead of last year's pace and I did TONS of projects and chart paper lessons and presentations, so I should be just fine relaxing slightly until the end of April and work on making my class more enjoyable.

need to rethink things

i realize i'm not differentiating enough.

and i've been way too boring.

i need to take next week to relax, think, and come up with new ways to help my kids learn.

making the most of advisory

They still haven't hired a new history teacher so I have my advisory in the meantime.

I actually came up with a pretty decent 2 week project to tide us over until the break, after which, I hope to have the class relieved from me.

I have the kids making their very first resumes and they actually really enjoy it. I've been alternating days in the classroom with days in the computer lab. When they're on the computers, I let them play music and surf the web as long as they complete the assignment and hand in a printed document by the end of the hour. They're great at multitasking on the computer-- and trust me, I get it. I do the same thing myself all night long.

They have enjoyed the peer editing as well. Tomorrow they'll print out a final version and Wednesday I think we'll do mock job interviews. Thursday, if I know for sure that a new teacher is coming to take over my class, I'll throw them a little "going away" party.

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I have officially been chosen for the per session after school dean position. This is from 4-8 per session hours every 2 weeks.

I'm already making 9 per session hours each pay period so this will be a nice addition.

advisory is almost gone!!!

the dean position is still not posted. and apparently i'm not the only person gunning for it.

however, my AP told me yesterday that him and the principal decided that since I have been given so much responsibility since my colleague left (running PD, meetings, basically at the beck and call of my principal) they agree that it's only fair to take my advisory away from me to free up some of my time.

and when the time comes that dean is posted, it'll be easier to take the position as i'm only teaching 4 periods a day.

so in the meantime i'm just waiting for them to hire a new teacher to take over my old colleague's classes. because of the freeze, they have to interview all the ATR's in addition to traditional candidates before they are allowed to make a decision so it's taking a while. but i can't wait for the new teacher because i'm in the mood to meet someone new and this person will be picking up my dreaded advisory class!!!

while i'm waiting, i'm hanging around the AP trying to learn the ropes. today i played with the building security cameras for the first time and caught a kid graffiti-ing up a table in our main hallway. exciting because he just happens to be someone my AP is trying to get rid and here the kid earned himself a suspension.

my AP was so excited that we nabbed, he actually high fived me when he saw the camera footage.

omg i'm such a suck up. but really i'm desperate for money right now so i'm mostly gunning for per session hours.