TGIF

Don’t worry, I’m alive. Not only am I alive, but I’m also smiling. It may have something to do with the fact that I’m currently enjoying a Warm Delight (thanks Mom) and the prospect of sleeping in later than 5:30 tomorrow, but it’s also in big part because I truly enjoyed my first week at school. It was long (even though it was only 3 days), it was hard, and it was exhausting, but it was also fun and invigorating. As much as I’m looking forward to some time to recoop this weekend, I am genuinely excited to get back to school on Monday. Let’s hope this lasts.

You know you’re a first year teacher when….your idea of a good Friday night is an omelette, some television, and Facebook. My roommates and I have collapsed around various parts of the house, trying to catch up on life outside of school before we before we jump back on the teacher train tomorrow to lesson plan. We’ve exchanged stories, compared our rosters, read student surveys aloud, and shared our concerns for the upcoming weeks. We’re tired of talking about school, but we can’t help it. As hard as it is, I’m loving it.

There are so many interesting things about the situation in the school that didn’t surprise me much after being in Mississippi, but I suppose they are not quite normal. For example, there is no bell system. Well, there is, but the company that installed the bells set the wrong times and never left instructions on how to change it. So the bells go off at random times during the day, and we dismiss our classes by looking at the clock. I’m already used to it, though, and I think it’s even good for me, because it keeps me accountable for how long I have left in class.

At the moment, the lunch situation is a disaster. Someone has to come around and knock on our doors at the beginning of 8^th period to dismiss us for lunch. Then, by the time I get my kids to line up quietly and walk them to the cafeteria, we have to wait in line for 10 minutes before we can even get in the cafeteria. Because of the behavior issues and prior incidents, there are some pretty tight measures taken to keep things under control. Such as only letting one class in the cafeteria at a time, and making the other classes stand in the hall. I’ll just be honest—my 8^th period is already my toughest class behaviorally, and to try to have any sort of control over them while they stand in the hall for 10 minutes is out of the question. Ten minutes in the hallway. Twenty-five 12 year olds. Not gonna happen. Yesterday I had a girl throw water on another girl. The day before another girl put this tiny (but instigating) boy in a headlock. On top of that, I have to stand around their lunch table while they eat to help keep things under control. It is certainly not ideal, but there isn’t much of a way around it.

My first three periods of the day have been fantastic. A few behavior problems here and there, but I’ve been able to nip them in the bud pretty quickly and I think we will be okay. This 8^th period, however, is a different story. Thanks to two girls and one boy in particular, we get off task easily and the noise level is ridiculous. There’s also a lot of back talking, which before I was too tired to address, but now I know that I have to take care of it. I devised a new system that revolves around individual rewards: giving out green tickets for good behavior, yellow tickets are a warning, and red tickets for consequences (isolation, conference, phone call home, etc). It seemed to work relatively well today, but we’ll see if that holds up. Kids can cash in the green tickets for rewards such as homework passes, bathroom passes, spiral notebooks, candy, etc. It may be a little more expensive to maintain than I would like, but if it means that these kids are working hard and learning, I’m okay with it for now. Maybe eventually I can wean them off of it.

It’s amazing how much my 7^th graders are like my 4^th graders from this summer. They may think they’re more mature, but honestly, they don’t act much older than 9 year olds. And ultimately, they still want attention, they still want to know that someone cares about them, and they still want to be accepted. And don’t we all?

I would be lying if I said I love every minute of it. There have been moments where I wished I could just sit down and take a break. There have been moments where I thought I might have a meltdown because of behavior. And there have been those overwhelming moments where I realized just how much work I have ahead of me. But as cheesy as it sounds, none of those matter when a student whose name I can barely remember yells, “Hey Miss H!” out the bus window, or when round Antoine proclaims to the class that I’m a good teacher when I make them practice lining up until they can follow all directions (is that what my life is coming to, measuring my value based on the words of a 12 year old?). I can’t even imagine what it’s going to feel like to actually see student achievement in action.

What I can’t get over, though, is how many of my students come from broken homes. As I glanced over my student surveys, I noticed that a good majority, maybe 85%, of my students live with only their mother and siblings or their grandparents. And it’s very rare to come across a child whose mother has the same last name. It breaks my heart to think that so many of these kids will never know what it’s like to grow up with two parents in a healthy relationship. Although I guess that’s something I’ve always taken for granted, because it’s supposed to be that way. I don’t care what anyone says. That’s the way we were created to live, in two-parent families. These kids already have so much working against them, so much that they cannot control.

Okay, enough from me. Check out a few photos from my classroom below (before Day 1—it’s a little more together and decorated now). My exciting Friday night continues as I move from my desk to my warm, soft, inviting bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Until next time…

Bulletin boards, mailbox system (each student has a file folder and I have one in each class's box), numbered cubbies, masking tape homework calendar, and room view.

My numbered cabinets, masking tape homework calendar, my I Want To Be A... wall (which is now covered with 95 index cards and the students' dream jobs), and the Shout Outs makeshift bulletin board.