Day #92

Just a sample of a typical day:

*handed two-sided form for Special Ed student at last minute before an IEP meeting at 8:22 as I'm gathering my homeroom together to lead them upstairs. IEP meeting is at 8:30 because parent finally showed up after months of phone calls and I fill out the form against a column while reading texts from the principal on my phone and listening to a student tell me about his cat. I turn in the form to the Special Ed teacher on the way up the stairs.

*I send a student to the nurse. He's obviously sick. The nurse sends him back to my room for some unknown reason, and said student pukes in my recycling bag. As soon as the odor hits the class two other students are ill. One pukes in the trash can (fortunately), the other runs down the hall with hand clasped over her mouth and only sprays a bit before getting to the bathroom. Although B'more has single-stream recycling, I don't think they handle yesterday's half-digested Wendy's #6 meal with upsize fries, so I have to take my recycling bag which was nearly full of plastics and papers and chuck it in the dumpster.

*I visit the 7th grade boys at lunch. One is obviously in distress (and seated at the table next to the counselor who pays him no mind). I ask what's wrong and other kids tell me another student messed him up. The student in distress starts bawling uncontrollably and I lead him down the hall. He's got PTSD. His PTSD triggered a flashback to physical abuse when he was young during a hockey game in the gym--another boy checked him into the wall. "It's not his fault," the boy tells me. "He was just playing the game. But I can't control this. Now they all think I'm a sissy."

*I'm eating lunch. I have about ten minutes to do this. The principal walks in. "Sorry to barge in on your lunch," she says, and laughs. I've got a kid shaking with PTSD in the corner, I've got another autistic kid using my desktop, two girls are for some reason dancing on my carpet and reciting L'il Mama lyrics, and I'm reading BCRs and typing a lesson plan. The principal is of course joking. Teachers are quite used to having lunches barged in on. The kid in my 2nd period class who is soon to be Simba on Broadway is leaving after Friday. We need to plan something. "When you get a moment--I'm just planting a seed. We should do something Friday." Everything I'm working on slithers away in a vortex. When I get a moment, I think. When I get a moment. A moment. There is only one and it is now.

*I'm giving a test on POE and literacy skills tomorrow to all three of my Humanities classes. I decide to scaffold for the struggling 7th grade boys by giving them the test ahead of time. I'm going to let them try it out, then go over all the answers with them, then print out a study sheet with all the answers typed up so they can study it all night and take the test tomorrow. They still talk and play and point laser pointers at each others' eyes and pack each others' shoes and text on their phones and debate 2nd century heresies and whatnot. But I've seen their recent standardized testing results and they've all improved though they claim it had nothing to do with the teachers.

*I lose my voice between 8:30 and 9:45 because I'm struggling with cold number 1,303 of the season and I have to type everything on the LCD projector. I kind of like it because the kids can talk as loud as they like and it doesn't interrupt class.