Crazy Week

I've had the craziest week ever. My new job, sucks! The school is mass chaos. As I found out through some of the other teachers, most of the students have learning disabilities and are taking medication. My first day, I had a sixth grader tell me to go screw myself and then apologized. I broke up four fights between two kids in an hour. I found out that most of the ninth graders don't know how to write three paragraphs. I don't get my own lunch period, either. I have to be in the cafeteria with the kids to make sure they don't crazy. Kids just curse up and down the hallway.

Then the kicker came. I was asked to teach 1st and 2nd grade (combined). The reason for this is because the teacher these students had didn't speak English that well. Wow! The fact that these two grades are combined is beyond me, but whatever. So my little rugrats are actually very adorable. I have a couple of kids that have speech impediments, a boy with add, and a girl that has psychological problems due to abuse.

The little girl is hectic to deal with, but is the sweetest kid you could ever imagine. She sees me in the mornings before class starts and runs to me to give me a hug and a kiss. She stands next to me and holds my hand waiting for me to walk her up the stairs. I fed her the first day because she just puts food everywhere but her mouth. She only knows how to write her name. She spends the entire day coloring or trying to steal some other kid's pen. She even goes into my bookbag and tries to take my pens. I got her to understand that there's no talking and that she must sit down. I think I also got her to understand that she must ask me first to go the bathroom instead of running out of the classroom. Let's see if I could make some progress with her.

There's actually special ed classes in this school, but I don't know what they do with all the other kids. My add kid, he just wants to color and show me his karate moves. I could barely get him to do classwork. He doesn't do his homework. I sent a letter to his parents to make sure that he does his homework. He's also a sweet kid. He keeps on making me paper dogs and planes. He draws for me, too. If I had each of these kids alone, they would definitely improve. They all have potential.

Another problem I'm running into is dividing the lesson plans between the two grades. What happens when I start teaching the first graders or the second graders, they all want to participate. Even if I give them classwork to do while I try to teach the lesson, they get excited and want to answer the questions. So far, I make all of them participate. I'm not sure what else to do. I don't want to tell either grade not to answer because I feel that will turn them off to school. Most of the times you get kids that don't want to participate in class. In this case, they all want to participate, which I think is a great sign.

Last but not least, I've been sick all week. I think it's really bad allergies. I'm loosing my voice and I'm all congested. My voice isn't going to get any better because I'm usually yelling at the kids to be quiet. Thursday night I ended up taking a tylenol pm, and fell asleep before 7pm. I've also been working at B&N, so I'm just exhausted. I finally have Sunday off. I want to enjoy the day and celebrate my birthday, which is on Monday.