Laughing all the way

 OT: - When I come next week to do my evaluation, I will need a room with a table and a couple of chairs.

Me: Got it.. (Cause you know we are a school and don't have that)

Me: I see that you didn't include G's classroom teacher in on the Zoom invite so I forwarded it to her. 

Psych: Why did you do that?

Me: So that she can participate in the meeting

Psych: Oh they come? I wasn't aware of that?

Me: Then who were you going to have sit in? 

Psych: One of the teachers from student's home school (who hasn't even met the kid)

 Me: um yeah no. G's classroom teacher will be in on the conference since she actually knows him and works with him on a daily basis. 

 

KDG Teacher - yeah I just want G identified so I'm not held accountable for his lack of progress. If he is identified then I have justification for lack of progress. I can also show it to admin to get more leverage for what I want. 

 

I am also not the staff member that you need to justify when you are going to mass. Don't care. Don't need to justify when you are going or not going. Not my business nor do I care. 

Not for the weak

 No matter what type of school you work in, no matter the city.. this job isn't for the weak... 

This week... 

• 2 parents have reached out to me to say that their children are failing spelling. The first one didn't want her name mentioned. Oh don't worry it won't be. Come to find out the teacher wasn't providing accommodations for one and it's questionable that she was for the other. 
• First parent was like oh but the teacher does so much for him I don't want her to have to do more or think I am upset.. Oh no.. she has to do her job and she has a grade level aide and a sped aide at 9am no excuses there
• Second parent was like oh well I'm sure she will do better next quarter
• Teacher insists that student has CP and gets pissed when I won't talk to mom about it. Um.. I'm not a doctor nor do I have that medical background so no I'm not having that conversation. Also pissed when I said he needs to have consequences for pooping his pants. She says he can't help it. Oh he can if he can not do it in her class and does it in specials and lunch. Made excuses for everyone else
• Teacher points out that he can't see to read his worksheets. 
• umm are you enlarging his worksheets you know according to his 504 plan.. her response.. I love you but I don't have time to do that. I have 24 other kids with 12 of them learning from hom right now.. 
• Went to go get worksheets to enlarge... Do you really want to do this? Me: No but I don't have a choice here so give me the worksheets
• Returned on 11x18 paper Teacher - oh we have paper that size... No its your imagination 
• I have been told that based on where two kids are at at the end of the nine weeks, teacher is going to admin to insist that two students are retained or a one on one aide much be hired for the two students. 
• um yeah not going to happen 
• Got to hear complaints that all the sped kiddos got put into the same room along with the all the kids that have ADHD and that we really need to rethink how we do class placements
• umm there are 4 sped kiddos the others I have nothing to do with I have no idea how they all got put in your room 
• I get that it is not fair that all of the younger grades have a full time aide and you don't but that doesn't mean that you get more time than they do just because you don't like the make up of your class. 
• Had a TOR record question eligibility og OHI because of ADHD because we don't have the medical diagnosis
• obviously you didn't read the report as you would see what data we used to qualify
• it was the school psych  that recommended it due to the data that we had. 
• I get that public school TOR has all the time in the world to meet because she only has half of her kids in the building but that doesn't mean that I have the time to drop everything so that we can have a 30 min conversation about a student that you will never see.
  

Sainthood

 2nd Grade working on a high frequently worksheet

M -playing with a set of keys on the table.. "Oh look there is a whistle"

N- I dare you to blow the whistle 

Me- if you blow the whistle you are both going to get a yellow behavior sheet

M- I'm not playing with the keys... as he is touching the keys

Few minutes later.. 

M- Hey look! Mr. S is a saint!!! 

Me What?

M - See... (pointing to a little figure on the key chain that looks like a priest) Mr. S is a saint.. 

Me. well okay then

Same class... watching videos on counting by threes and fours.. students dancing... one is doing the Macerana ...  ummm yeah not even close to the right rhythm but okay.

Grant me strength

 Pandemic has hit where I work.. and people have lost their minds.. 

• upset that test was negative and then positive
• upset by the number of "close contacts" as determined by health department
• have been told that kids still need sports despite this how this happened
• parent emailed saying that student isn't coming to school today she is going to do online learning (umm this isn't really an option unless you have a medical reason you just can't choose)
  
• been told that kids should come to school even though they aren't sick they need to be at school 
• told don't care if the have the illness send them to school, no worse than what they normally come to school with 
• can't trust the process or system 
• this whole thing is overblown 

 

Have two students who are a bit lower academically in one class. Asked by the other teacher in grade level if because of those two students, were the weaknesses and inabilities of other students missed because these students need far more help last year

• No - there was an aide in previous grade  level helping out, I was in there as well. All kids got what they needed 
• some kids struggles just show up later than others do 

Teacher wants me to help her solve the problem of student having pooping accidents when not in her room. 

• Teacher thinks he can't help it, I think there is some element of choice I'm the one that i wrong according to teacher 
• Teacher insist that he has Cerebral Palsy wants to tell parent now. I told her I'm not qualified to have that conversation with parent as I am not a medical professional 
• teacher is basing it on what she sees and what she knows of CP

Teacher wants me to solve the problem that student can't see anything 

•     Did you read his 504 plan? It says to enlarge his work
• I love you bit I can't do that. I have 25 students 14 of them doing learn at home I just don't have time to do that
• Well give me what you need enlarged and it will get done
• Oh wait you also have an aide in the room for the majority of the day.. she could do that as well 
• I can't fix what parents won't deal with  

Tried to work with student in group setting for 20 minutes on multiplying decimals. Student didn't get much out of it because she was upset about her homework grade, that others were going to see her homework grade and that she was going to fail the test tomorrow. 

• umm... I just went through the entire homework to reteach it
• Parents - we aren't making excuses for her any more but we are giving her more responsibility with doing her work on her work and can you make sure that she checks her own work for mistakes. 

Student had nebular meltdown in specials today - wasn't surprised it was coming all day  

• end of the day - music teacher gives me a blow by blow of what happened and what she and the class did to help student and wanted to know what to do to help him 
• IGNORE THE BEHAVIOR
• said she and class eventually ignored it, but wanted to make sure that she did everything right.. yep sometimes easiest step: IGNORE THE BEHAVIOR
  

Say What..

 During a test the question was what three things do we celebrate about Jesus... 

Student answer: Life Death Christmas

Note to self.... The name in the story is Captain Arseno not Captain America no matter how many times you read it and no  matter how entertaining the second name may be

During math quiz- student starts explaining how to do the math problem as if she were doing a youtube video with a British accent none the less. 

Morning carpool

Kindergartners: Hi Mrs. Nuggett

Me: Wait! What? How did I get that name?

Kindergartners: Don't know

Me: I mean I know I'm crazy and all

Student: Well you kind of are.

New Normal

The last time I taught/ saw students in person March 13, 2020..

Let that sink in for a moment... 

One would think that with that having been a Friday the 13 that it was some crazy prank, silly joke, start of spring break.. 

Nope- that was the day we walked out the building not knowing when we would return. We had hoped, planned for it being just a two week break and then Spring Break. Our plan.. return after Spring Break.. 

Here we are... May 1 2020  E-learning has become the new normal. To walk into school you are walking into a frozen moment in time. If you didn't know better, you would think we were on an all school field trip, or just out of the building and we would be back soon.. An eerie feeling none the less.. 

While the classroom may now be our kitchen table, home office, cleaned out closet.. the teaching and learning continue- it has too..

We are in a new normal.. we shall figure this out..we always do... we are teachers. 

What they don't prepare you for

Colleges and universities do a great job in preparing undergrads for the teaching profession, but they don't prepare you for everything.... 

May I offer the following... 

• student pregnancy
• student witnessing a murder aftermath
• student being murderded
• student being accused of muder
• allegidly of another students father
•  raids by the FBI
• talking to US Federal Marshall's and US Department of Education  
• watching a mayor shut down schools in a major metropolitan city for two weeks due to pandemic
• your own school being shut down for at least two weeks for pandemic
• don't worry though the state still expects you to complete state wide testing 
• state DOE promising 20 waiver days due to pandemic 

Erasers as emotional support

In my classroom I have giant size erasers that I bought at the Dollar Tree. My students love to use them. So much so that sometimes I have to hide them so they don't fight over them. 

This morning.. I learned that apparently these erasers are also emotional support items.. who knew.. 

One of my first graders was using an eraser and go to the essay portion of his reading test... all he had to do was copy the answer from his reading book.. 

Me. okay M all you need to do is copy your answer from your book and you are done. And no you don't need the eraser on your head. 

M: But it's so long..

Me: I know but you got this.. 

I look away and then look back.. 

Me: M why is the eraser on your shoulder? 

M: Smiles

Me: Is it helping you get the essay copied down? 

M: Yep I need it.. 

Well okay then.. I might add he had the essay copied in record time. 

Hmmm

So we are at almost the end of January... We have been in school since the middle of August..

My fifth grade teachers just realized TODAY that it takes me two class periods to assess the 5th graders because they are split  between both classes. Hmmm yeah, ya think?!?

They tell me that they will do better to send them all down at the same time. (There are 4 of them).. Okay...

What they really want - is for me to be in class with them for the other afternoon class... yep...