June 23, 2006
“Stepping Up Day” or “Graduation Day” for Pre-K and Kindergarten students. At first the assistant principal did not know where to put me, but then I was assigned to be the substitute for the teacher’s assistant in the pre-k class where I was assigned to cover the regular classroom teacher. Being assigned to the pre-k class, meant that I was able to go to the graduation ceremony. The ceremony was very long for very young children, but it was nice. Each class did two performances, then each classroom teacher presented “diplomas” to each student. I think the 1 hour and 45 minute show was too much for the kids. In my opinion, some of the performances were better than others, and one or two performances I found a bit vulgar. For example, in one class, the students each had an opportunity to step up to the front of the stage to do their own dance. One girl did a dance move that sent the audience into an exciting round of hooting and hollering (yes, an audience of parents and grandparents). The girl did a good imitation of the dance move, but without the style; she was just copying what she must have seen many times. So what was the dance move, chest pumps and pelvic thrusts. Which brings up the parents. From the parents in attendance, I got a pretty good idea the root of a lot of the things that I’ve complained about in previous blog entries. Many of the parents were (in my opinion) inappropriately dressed (skin-tight outfits and tattoos [on the ladies] and street casual clothes and caps [on the guys] were everywhere). Behavior? Other than the hooting and hollering? Parents continued to block the aisles to take pictures of their child even blocking other children from getting off the stage. Jumping into the children’s’ seat when they went to the bathroom, only to have to get up a few minutes later. Calling (and or allowing) their children (in the middle of the show) to leave their seats to go to them. At the reception after the ceremony, jumping the food line ahead of the pre-k/kindergarten children. Parents stealing the stuffed toys that were used to decorate the gymnasium. One parent asked if the toys could be taken, I told her that I thought they were decoration, but later, I noticed that she (and another parent[or adult] still took the stuffed toys). The big surprise (for me)? The assistant principal told me that the parents were much better behaved than at past ceremonies.

After the reception, I volunteered to help clean up the gym (the location of the reception). Since I still had an afternoon (the pre-k children were all dismissed), I was assigned to the wild special ed class (the one with two teachers). Today was an early dismissal day, so I was out of the building 2:30pm. I brought some of my teaching materials home. I have two more days until the end of the school year; I don’t want to wait until the last day to lug all of my materials home.

Post date - Monday, July 10, 2006 11:52am