I was not planning to post a blog entry now. For the last few days I have not been in a blogging mood. It has been almost a week since my last entry. Quick summary since then, my Monday last week turned out okay. Strange, but for about 3 hours of sleep, I did okay. I did go to the gym on Monday and Tuesday. My personal trainer told me on Tuesday that she would not be available on Wednesday, so I used Wednesday to fall back into my old "late leaving school" routine. I think I left school almost 7:30PM everyday from Wednesday to Friday. My trainer told me that she would not be able to come on Thursday, and that Friday would probably be her last day. She left a message on my cellphone Friday at 3PM offering to give me the 5th session of the 5 session package I paid for, but since my cellphone was home, I did not get the message until I returned home about 9PM. However, since I canceled last week, I don't feel she owed me that last session, but it was very nice of her to offer. Now, I am on my own to get up and out to the gym.

On the school front. Wednesday, my students were at their wildest. Wildest!! I had flashbacks to last school year when attitudes, anger and disrespect was boiling over. Nothing was working in terms of classroom management. I ended up doing an after school detention for the serious offenders. They had to write a letter to their parents about the things they did in class. That letter had to be signed and returned to me. If it wasn't, I would mail a copy to their homes. I followed up the letters with phone calls, so I assumed that the next day would be better.

Thursday? They picked up right where they left off. My hypers were just as hyper and disruptive and disrespectful. Every statement from me was followed by a "I don't care" from the hypers. Most of the morning was off the wall. Finally, I decided to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. I focused (I said) on the good kids. I had an unopened bottle of soda left over from the Year-End party, so I told my class that I would be giving a special reward for the good kids(the soda). That put me back on the offensive. I lowered my voice (something I have to work on doing consistently), I gave lots of praise for the good behavior. When the hypers tried to seize control of the classroom, I started shipping them to other teacher's room. I had to remove three (Sticky-fingers, Cackler, and Sneak) -- Princess quieted down so she stayed. By the afternoon, I was in control again. Also, due to an incident in the lunchroom, AP2 called Sticky-finger's mother. That gave me the opportunity to speak to the mother a bit. Basically, the mother was there because AP2 called, for me, I just get, "Umm, Hmmms". Since Sticky Fingers was in trouble (more or less), she did not do anything disruptive. And as a result, her "sisterhood of disruption" turned on her. They called her names, tauted her, etc...

Sticky Fingers left early with her mother, so that left me with Princess and Cackler who were defiant to the end, so I did the afternoon detention again. Cackler who now seemed immune to the letter -- she said that her mother wasn't angry, and just signed the other letter. I made her put that in the letter also. Sneak who was writing on the chair, I made him (after I got the okay from calling his mother earlier in the day) scrub all of the desks (all 22 desks). But first, Sneak owed me a letter. When Cackler's time was up, I dismissed her....big mistake.

On Wednesday, after doing the afternoon detention, I fell back to the softy and walked her out of the school building and across the street (me without my coat in the middle of winter), to make sure she got home. I then called the mother to let her know where her daughter was.

Thursday, having gone through this afternoon detention/ waste of time again, I was in no mood to trekking up and down the stairs, so I just dismissed Cackler. Later, I found out she got caught leaving the building from a side exit. The office worker told me that Cackler was caught by AP2, but he would still have to tell AP1. Moments later, AP1 called me on the class phone. She was very upset because according to her the only person who would get into trouble (if Cackler "flipped her story") would be the principal. What I did was wrong for not getting permission from Admin and the parent(in writing). Not once did she ask why I kept the student in detention, nothing about other options I could have tried, or should have tried. Her only concern seemed to be that "if anything happened, the principal would be the one in court, the principal would be the one in trouble". It is nice to know that if I was a sick individual, that I would get away from any punishment for a crime, and that the principal would be the only one who would take the fall.

After that phone call, I then spent another hour cleaning up after the mess Sneak made scrubbing desks. I left school almost 8PM totally disgusted.

Friday, Cackler was absent...I wonder why?(not really -- Sorry) Sticky Fingers was absent (I knew she would not be in school today because she took great pride with the "I don't care, I won't be in school"[doctor's appt.] attitude). That just left Sneak, who was a bit better behaved. And Princess, who (I wasn't planning on allowing to participate in gym) got pulled off my line by AP2 from the lunchroom incident harassing another girl with her sisterhood of the street in training). AP2 can be a bit of the Admin enforcer, but I think she is treated as a bit player on the Admin ladder by Queen Bee and Second-in-Command. Sorry, I got sidetracked.

Princess was put in another class until her mother came. Another incentive for becoming an administrator. My phone calls do nothing, but a call from Admin has pull. Now, it was Princess' turn to face the angry mother (inconvenienced for having to take a day off from work). Mom's suggestion was that she would (maybe) send Princess back to Africa for a month because there she will get an education, and there they can deal with kids in a way that would cause problems here. So, how long did Princess stay good before slowly reverting back into Princess...about 90 minutes. I think she might need more than a month. :o

Friday was a very nice day. We had a visitor from the literacy program who came to see how the program was implemented. However, I've been on this computer long enough, so I am going to pass of summarizing and commenting on that event.

The kids were (relatively) nicely behaved. The afternoon (and evening) was spent tackling my teacher's corner. Our school will soon be having a Quality Review visit. Since we're now an "A" school -- don't ask me, I don't know what passes for an "A" school. Admin will soon be making their rounds doing their inspections. This whole school year, I've allowed myself become overwhelmed with everything, it is time for me to start digging out of the hole I've created. On Friday (evening), I finally tackled the mound of papers that was about 2 and a half feet high. I also finally got around to putting on the desk lock. I did not have a key for the old lock, and the builder of the desk put the insertion hole about a half inch off, so the lock (old or new) could not be used. I solved that problem by drilling a new insertion point in the correct spot. Now, I can lock my laptop in my desk instead of the closet. I also replaced the locks in the teacher's closet and classroom supply closet (about $15 per lock). The desk lock was about $7.

Today was my recovery day as usual. I spent most of the day in bed. I got up about 10am, and was back in bed about 12PM. I finally got up about 5PM. I had a bowl of organic oatmeal and a bowl of Strawberry Frosted Mini Wheats, and a cup of hot green tea. Unfortunately, I've been eating a couple of honey on wheat bread sandwiches with my Weight Watchers over these last few days, so I am back up to 200lbs having dropped to 196lbs. My goal now is to spend next week getting my classroom (and my students' portfolios) in order. Hopefully, I will be able to resume attending the gym on January 28th. Now, I am going to do a little bit of online grocery shopping. Now that I've figured out how, I will just use my previous order to make my order. That will save quite a bit of time.


Post Date - Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:46PM