Today, for the very first time, I got to experience the way that Halloween/daylight savings time impacts kids. It was NOT pretty. The combination of those two things with the normal Monday whines made for a rough day in Room 29. At one point, I literally banged my head against the easel in front of the kids. A little drama never hurt, right? ;)
I don't know what it is about Mondays but it feels like the kids forget every routine and expectation of school over the weekend. This morning, two separate kids came up to me and said, "Hey! What happened to writing?! We don't have writing on the schedule." I said, "Well, friend, it's Monday. We've never had writing on Mondays. We also have math in the morning, which only happens on Mondays. Haven't you ever noticed that?" Blank stares. Seriously, where have they been?! All day long I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle with things that we've talked about all year long. To transition from activities we have a set of chimes that we play to get students' attention. The expectation is that they stop what they're doing, freeze, and put their eyes on the teacher for the next set of directions. For pretty much the entire school year, we've had to remind them of this expectation every single time we've rang the chimes. It typically takes them 2 or 3 chances to get this right. Some might say, "Hey, that's clearly not an effective strategy. Try something else." but frankly, what else is there? I don't want to do a clapping pattern or say "Pause please" to get their attention every single time. I like the chime because it saves my voice and it's consistent. But of course, since it was Monday, it took an exceptionally long time to get their attention every time. It made us late for recess, late for lunch, and late for specials. I hate being that teacher whose class is never on time!
I also had a tough time with a student named T today. She is a stubborn one who argues her way out of absolutely everything. A tutu and tights wearing diva who can be found drawing hearts on just about everything, she really needs a lot of support to get things done. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but she rarely pays attention during directions. The other day, she walked over to me while I was helping another student and said, "Ms. T, I need help on this." while I was mid-sentence with this other student. I said, "I'm working with this person right now, if I have time, I'll help you after." She continued to stand there and say my name. "T, you can go sit down, I'll come to you if I have time." She said, "But I don't get it. How am I supposed to do nothin' if I don't get it?" This was a valid point. I said, "You are more than welcome to ask someone at your table or another teacher for some help, but right now I am working with someone else." She continued to stand there for a few minutes and then she sat down, where my CT helped her with her work. Later, she came up to me and said, "Ms. T, why wasn't you helping me before? You spent all of your time with C and I needed you." I apologized, but then reminded her that she did get help from another teacher. Trust me, if I could be in 17 places at once, I would love to be right next to each of my students all day long. Unfortunately, I am left to give independent work that all students are capable of doing if they listen to directions. This is precisely why I have a hard time feeling sorry for kids who need me to reiterate the directions to them more than once after I've already done this in the large group. Frankly, it's exhausting.
Today, T was sniffing a blueberry-scented dry erase marker. I said, "T, you know, it's really not good to sniff markers." She said, "But it smells like blueberries!" I said, "It might smell good like food, but it's not. It's not good for you to smell." Again she said, "But it smells like blueberries!" I said, "Yes, I know, but your brain is made up of cells. When you smell the chemicals in markers, those cells die. We don't want that to happen any more than it already has. Please stop." Her response to this was, "The nose isn't the brain." While this is technically true, I realized that explaining to her the connection between your brain and your body was a lost cause. From her standpoint, it smelled good, so she was going to smell it. I took the marker and then made a mental note to look out for any future sniffing. Whoever says a teacher's job is easy hasn't spent more than an hour in a classroom. From forgetfulness to marker sniffing, I never know what my kids are going to throw at me on any given day.
Here's to Tuesday!
-BJT
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