Friday, October 5, 2007
Today started with my taking the later train. The trains were a bit slow this morning. I arrived at school with about 8 minutes to spare. I went down to pick up my class at about 7:55am. Admin is strongly encouraging teachers to pick up students at 7:55am. At first, I was (like several other teachers) not happy about picking up my students any earlier than I had to. According to our current contract, teachers are not required to pick up their students until 8am (the start of our workday). I did not like the early pick up at first, but I began to think about it, now the idea doesn't bother me. I don't mind picking up my students a few minutes early.

Today was another relatively easy day. AP2 photocopied five lessons from a test prep book, and that was the "school-wide" test on finding the main idea. There were 5 passages, each one was a page long with 5 questions (4 multiple choice and one extended response). Personally, I think that "test" was a bit too much for the students who had little test prep skills in second grade.

Since the usual candidates were their usual disruptive selves, I did a lunch detention. I think I was fighting a bit of a head cold, so I was not really in the mood for the usual nonsense. I told the talkers and the players that if they were going to take from me (in this case my time to teach), then I would take from them (their lunch/recess time). What was different this time?

I didn't allow them to speak...or even ask a question. In the past, during detention, even though I was suppose to be mad, I would still try helping the students with the work. Basically, if they were loud, disruptive and disrespectful in class, I would still try being teacher during detention. Explaining again what they should have gotten if they were not being disruptive. This time, I just wasn't in the mood. When they did the "I need help", I did the "ain't that the truth". You talked, played, and disrupted the lesson, and now you want me to teach you during my lunch time. NO!!!

Normally, I'd get a "that's not fair attitude argument, but sensing that I was in an evil mood, they said nothing. It was a nice detention. Friday's is pizza day. Since I've lost a few pounds just from my poor sleep habits and exhaustion, I did not want to spoil the weight loss with pizza. I forgot to bring my Healthy Choice meals with me, so I did not eat lunch.

Today was early dismissal for everybody(2:20pm), but I stayed in the building until 7:00pm. I got tired of the disorganization and the "soon I will start...". Before I got started with my classroom, I went to the local Chinese takeout. I ordered a lo mein and fried rice lunch meal($5).

I was home about 8pm. I was asleep about 8:15pm. Again no dinner.


Post Date - Monday, October 8, 2007 1:55am