Sunday, May 13, 2007

The Reaction

Because it's hard to keep on top of posting every day I tend to forget a lot of what happened in school that I wanted to blog. So bear with me if I sound a little jumbled.

The preparing thing worked SO well in 8th grade. The aim took less than 20 minutes. Right then and there I scheduled a test for next Monday; I'm so confident I can finish the chapter by then.

I spent a lot of the period reading The Wave- and I'm sure I'll be done that by next reading or the one after that.

After that, I still had 20 minutes left to the lesson so I did maps with the class and scheduled a quiz for this coming Monday.

OMG, that reminds me that I had better make up that quiz!

Recess time a bunch of teachers were in the office making fun of stupid names, we had a great time but got a bit rowdy LOL. Spring fever I guess.

Before I walked into 7th grade I had a word with the principal about the general attitude there. I had marked the drafts of their editorials and noticed that 5 of them were missing- and this was 4 days after they were due.

The principal and I agreed to lower each girl by one full grade for this. There was no reason that in May this kind of behavior should still be going on.

The missing essays were from FE, AS, DA, SNK, and CSS. The only one who surprised me was DA. Like I have mentioned in previous posts; she had changed drastically since the beginning of the year.

I refused to help the 5 girls who hadn't handed in their drafts during the rewriting time. I said that they had lost their privilege for me to help them. I told CSS who was being stubborn that my help time had come the night before. Her writing was not on my pile so she lost out.

She offered to hand it her writing then, but I insisted that I would not touch it. She was angry; as were the other girls who had missed out, but they knew I was fair.

MB had brought in a book she wanted me to read to the class, but I thought it was too long to finish before the end of the year.

CK told me to start it now and finish it next year. I told her there would be no next year.

The class started yelling and I could not calm them down. About 6 or 7 kids started crying. I thought I was going to embarrass myself too. :(

I can't tell them why I am leaving but they kept asking me questions and made me promise 1000 times that it wasn't because I hated them. I told them that I was not leaving them for another school or anything, just had to leave teaching for a while.

I told them that they'd all be more than welcome to call me or anything once the year was over, and knowing these girls, I don't doubt they will.

MB, RB, SE, CSS, SG, and some others were really upset. I felt terrible.

I told the girls about three of my students who had dropped in on me earlier in the week (CK, MP, and CO) so that I could paint two sweatshirt for them for theri color war. It was actually quite funny that my old students were hanging around my flat- taking care of JB while I was painting, but I liked the feeling that my old kids still remembered me.

I promised my new kids that I'd be there for them the same way.

Later that night CSS's mom called me screaming that I hadn't called her back about a note she had given for me to call her.

JB was coughing in the background and acting really bratty and I apologized to her for having a life that demanded some of my time.

She went off about how CSS was on meds now and that it was irresponsible for me not to have called her about noticing a change in her behavior (Ah! So that's why she's been so calm lately!)

I called her on that and asked her if maybe she wasn't the irresponsible one for not telling me her kid was on drugs.

She shut up after that. We spoke for a while, and all the while I heard her yelling at CSS in the background. No wonder that kid is so messed up. She gets treated so strangely at home.

Her parents waited years to have her, and then she turned out not to be the perfect child they dreamed of. The way they treat her reflects all that. It's so sad.

I wish I could be there for her to help her through next year. I'm so sad to be leaving these girls that I've become so attached to.

Someone please keep reminding me that this is the right thing to do.

1 comment:

yingerman said...

By the time you the kid/teacher well enough, it time to move on.
Like everything it has it's ups n' downs.
Sometimes you get a horrible teacher, and cant wait for the year to be done with. And sometimes it goes way too fast....