The Crazy Adventures of....
So, today I felt completely off. I woke up late, threw blush on in the car, forgot my lip gloss, ate White Castle last night ( so I was bloated), wasn't prepared for my classes, had Red Bull instead of coffee or tea, barely got rest (dag on debates) and my hair was flat...
Now, for some people the major question on their mind is, "what is the big deal? It's only one day"; however what people don't understand is what "one" day in the life of a middle school teacher entails. So in addition to wearing Mike's ear out, talking about it, I will also write about it. Now, because I deal with people constantly, I am a true believer in the "sandwich" (positive, negative, positive) so here we go, today I had:
A quiet first period. The students did what they were told, asked to read and write longer and ended up reading/writing a total of 46 min. I was able to individually conference with six different students. It was wonderful.
However my second period was a bit different. I had to constantly tell the class to be quiet. I had to call out several students, because I just love it when the conversation flows something like this:
me: " Be quiet class"
class:Blah blah blah blah
Stand and stare
blahahah hahaahha
"Class I need you to be quiet"
hahahahah blah blah
"5...4...3....2...1"
some random student, "so, I told him to suck my..."
"Excuse me..."
"Oh, my bad miss (because he/she does not know my name, even though it is January) I didn't hear you say be quiet."
On top of that, when we did share aloud our creative writing. One student shared about the fact that her writing was "filled with her passions...the fact that she will not give up and she is not a bunch of talk...". It was so beautiful, I felt so much pride, until I called on the next three students, one of which talked about the " Chinese lady that tried to sell her DVDs so she cursed her out," another student's writing was about the fact that "The Giants SUCK....and so do the Bengals" and then another girl's share out was, "she think she cute, talkin' sh#* about me, bout to be 16 in the ninth grade, she don't want this...". The young lady didn't look at her paper once as she "read" us her free write.
And then when I went back over free write share out procedure...one student said, "but it is a free write and it was important to me, I didn't want any DVDs." After she said this, I assumed we would ignore her, until two students chimed in, "she has a point." SHE HAS A POINT!!! WHAT WAS HER POINT!!! We have got to do better!
However through this all, I guess I can consider my day pretty good. Because while there were definitely some mishaps throughout my day, they were nothing compared to some other incidence in the middle school.
A few instances:
One teacher was asked whether "she gives neck..." did the student really believe she wouldn't understand what that means?
One student got a calculator thrown at her, it hit her in the mouth, which was snagged on her braces and blood began gushing out of her mouth...
So yeah, in the long run, my hair is not that big of a deal, but when anything can go out of wack at anytime...when you work in a NY city public school...you need to have your A game on, and I was off, so it sucked a bit.
Now, for some people the major question on their mind is, "what is the big deal? It's only one day"; however what people don't understand is what "one" day in the life of a middle school teacher entails. So in addition to wearing Mike's ear out, talking about it, I will also write about it. Now, because I deal with people constantly, I am a true believer in the "sandwich" (positive, negative, positive) so here we go, today I had:
A quiet first period. The students did what they were told, asked to read and write longer and ended up reading/writing a total of 46 min. I was able to individually conference with six different students. It was wonderful.
However my second period was a bit different. I had to constantly tell the class to be quiet. I had to call out several students, because I just love it when the conversation flows something like this:
me: " Be quiet class"
class:Blah blah blah blah
Stand and stare
blahahah hahaahha
"Class I need you to be quiet"
hahahahah blah blah
"5...4...3....2...1"
some random student, "so, I told him to suck my..."
"Excuse me..."
"Oh, my bad miss (because he/she does not know my name, even though it is January) I didn't hear you say be quiet."
On top of that, when we did share aloud our creative writing. One student shared about the fact that her writing was "filled with her passions...the fact that she will not give up and she is not a bunch of talk...". It was so beautiful, I felt so much pride, until I called on the next three students, one of which talked about the " Chinese lady that tried to sell her DVDs so she cursed her out," another student's writing was about the fact that "The Giants SUCK....and so do the Bengals" and then another girl's share out was, "she think she cute, talkin' sh#* about me, bout to be 16 in the ninth grade, she don't want this...". The young lady didn't look at her paper once as she "read" us her free write.
And then when I went back over free write share out procedure...one student said, "but it is a free write and it was important to me, I didn't want any DVDs." After she said this, I assumed we would ignore her, until two students chimed in, "she has a point." SHE HAS A POINT!!! WHAT WAS HER POINT!!! We have got to do better!
However through this all, I guess I can consider my day pretty good. Because while there were definitely some mishaps throughout my day, they were nothing compared to some other incidence in the middle school.
A few instances:
One teacher was asked whether "she gives neck..." did the student really believe she wouldn't understand what that means?
One student got a calculator thrown at her, it hit her in the mouth, which was snagged on her braces and blood began gushing out of her mouth...
So yeah, in the long run, my hair is not that big of a deal, but when anything can go out of wack at anytime...when you work in a NY city public school...you need to have your A game on, and I was off, so it sucked a bit.
