Day 56 of 365: Back in the Saddle Again

Well, sort of...only it's not MY saddle, but I still have to continue breaking in this person's horses while they're out sick. Talk about 24 WILD mustangs!! We were even missing two today. I'm scared to ask the damage the entire herd can cause.

My day began with Matt dropping me off at the school, despite my holding back feeling physically ill, but I knew I had to get day one over with. I signed in at 8:10am and picked up a schedule -- which turned out to be incorrect. Luckily, a teacher helper during the literacy hour managed to edit it enough so I could get the students where they needed to be on time.

Where to begin?! One student managed to keep from acting up an entire 20 minutes into the day. From that point forward, he was what the south (US) would call "wide open." Entertaining the room with his raps and little gangsta moves --although I hardly see Ben Ten to be bad ass enough to fit into young Master T's rhymes. At one point he was "throwing up his dubs" and strutting across the room mumbling something about how he was going to "take it to the streets." I kindly assured him by this hour, I was certain it would be past his bedtime.This kid clearly watches too much TV.

Amidst Master T's antics, we had dear, sweet, puppet-master, Miss S. As soon as another student guessed my accent to be American, Miss S. claimed she couldn't understand the language I was speaking. The little manipulator made a solid attempt...A for effort. I told her I spoke the same language as she did, and asked if she understood anything I was saying at all, to which she replied, "no." Immediately I retorted, "good, then you understand." She eventually got worse and even paired up with Master T, adding a thuggish ruggish charm to her own little theatrical/lyrical performance.

Even with these two, you would think, surely it gets better. Hmm...I'm not so sure. One little boy, we'll call him Webster (uncanny resemblance, actually)...he came in a bit late and was constantly saying he wanted to go back home. For some reason, he kept saying that the little girls at the end of his table were punching him. I didn't witness this and everyone else in the class insisted he was telling stories. In retaliation, I can only assume, one of the accused girls came up to me during numeracy to show me where cute little Webster has supposedly cut her trousers with scissors. As it turns out, she was fibbing on him and actually did it herself! I'm sure her mom is going to love the story she's probably feeding tonight about how the supply teacher let little Webster bully her daughter...at least that's the version I imagine she will be passing off as the truth.

I made it to dinner break and THANK GOODNESS I had an hour's worth of rest without children. The rest of the day wasn't much better. It was a blur of pinching, name-calling, broken headband, swearing, breaking rulers and using them as projectiles, table surfing, blu tack smuggling, Houdini acts out the door to "use the toilet," etc. The common phrase throughout the day was, "Can I use the toilet, Miss?" It was so unreal. The behaviour specialist had to even make a special visit to the room.

I was actually asked at the end of the day if I would return, and I said that I would, only if the regular classroom assistant would be in the following day. I don't think two day's worth of abuse is necessary. It's only just after 6 and I can feel the migraine coming to accompany the muscle aches.

We'll see if the phone rings, but one thing is for sure...Thursday cannot get much worse. Year 5 has NOTHING on this class!!