A day like mine warrants a bottle of Aleve and a STRONG drink. Fortunately, I have the required naproxen sodium and I expect to be semi-recovered...just in time to return to school tomorrow.
I was in a Year 3 class today that was just...well...lively, to put it mildly -- after all, I do wish to keep this blog polite. Let's just say that as a supply teacher, I have to put up with different children than a regular classroom teacher. C'mon, we've all been there...only WE were the children at the time, right? Substitute walks in the room and you know one thing and one thing only...you can do WHATEVER you please today without the same consequences.
I do try to keep things as consistent with the daily routine as possible and I make it clear from the get-go that I am there to facilitate learning and will not tolerate any non-sensible behaviour. But enough whiny voices bleeting "Miiiiiiiissssss" and "Can I go to toy-luuuuhht?" whilst I'm trying to help a small group of lower performing students on their maths (who also don't have any interest in helping themselves) and it's enough to put me at my wit's end and my tolerance goes out the window. At the end of the day, I'm a stranger to them and I have not earned their trust enough for them to respect why I expect them to still behave. Alas, they really don't care...and it shows when I make simple requests like, "choose a different seat as clearly sitting in that one is causing you distraction," and I get a combination heavy sigh and eye-roll, accompanied with a sarcastic mimic of my own request given until the pupils within that child's immediate vicinity are giggling at their class-clown crony.
Forget the "you have to be firm with this group," how about some simple respect for adults?! What happened to this from when we were all kids?! I even said to one of the boys today, "No you may not go to the toilet because you really don't need to use it, you're just bored and looking for an excuse to leave the classroom." He just looked back at me and grinned, which was confirmation enough that I was right all along.
Please, don't misunderstand, I really do enjoy what I do...but today has just been one of those days, and I'm very glad it will soon be a 'yesterday.'
1 comment:
Hi, Just found your blog via blogexpat. We need you to join in the debate at Pond Parleys (.blogspot.com). I'm sure you'd have a lot to say.
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