Sick…

Of course the week before Christmas vacation I get sick. Sicker than I have been in a few years. So sick that I cannot describe my symptoms because I seem to have all of them at various times. On the plus side, since I couldn’t sleep, I got up at 3AM and graded papers…

Overloaded

Do you ever feel like your real-life is about to explode into teaching? Work is fine. If I only look at my work to do list, I am completely caught up. I’m not as far ahead as I like to be, but I’m on top of things. Even with the two unexpected days out of the classroom, I’m still going to be on the pacing guide and I think my kids will do fine on their test next week. That being said, I feel like the rest of my life is going to explode and I”m going to lose complete control. Let’s start with an important fact: It’s December 10, and I have not purchased 1 NOT ONE Christmas present…yeah, that’s only the beginning. My grandparents (who are not of the greatest health) are getting in to town tomorrow, so I need/want to spend all of my free time with them. This does not help my dilemma of no Christmas presents. Oh well, it will be alright…but I feel a little overwhelmed right now.

Being out of the Classroom

With only 7 instructional days left until Winter/Christmas break, you would think a day out of the classroom would be a blessed relief. Well, it was, but then it wasn’t. My school was nominated for a distinguished school award. Since I live and breath curriculum, administration pulled me out of my classroom Tuesday to help fill out the application, which is essentially a 10 page essay. Well, it was all interesting and good, but then I’m stuck with crowd control the next day. On top of that, we didn’t finish, so they’re pulling me out again on Friday. As we’re holding on until December 19, I really don’t feel like dealing with after substitute clean-up…oh well…sigh

This time of year…

This is a hard time of year to be a teacher.  Students are excited about Christmas and tired of school.  Each day this past week the behavior became worse and worse, until Thursday, when I felt like I was going to yell at all of them.  Thankfully, I held it together.  In my particularly troubling class, we had a discussion about how school works:  I teach and you learn.  If we both attempt our jobs, we can have fun at the same time.  When someone doesn’t do their job well, me or them, things go to hell.  Thursday’s fiasco was partly my fault as well as theirs.  I had made some equation puzzles for them to put together.  Essentially, there were some squares with problems and answers on each side.  You match the problem to the answer to put the pieces together.  Well, I had several puzzles cut out and separated, but I ran out of baggies, so I used paper clips…bad idea.  Obviosly, there was a huge mess of cards all over the place–this would be where I failed to do my part.  The students were chosing not to listen during any period of the instruction past the first 20 minutes of class, and then continued to talk for the remainder of the period–this would be where they failed at their part.  Thankfully, when Friday rolled around, I had a HIGHLY structured class, complete with three interactive and social activities along with notes and an assignment.  Everyone did their job, and we got a lot of stuff done.  When I asked at the end of the two hour period how they felt the day went, everyone was much more positive and even said they learned something.  Yay!  Now I’ve just got to hold it all together for two more weeks until Christmas vacation.  That’s 10 days with a solid plan, or someone won’t make it out with their sanity.