Field Trippin'

I counted to 14 over a billion times today.  We went to the zoo for our class field trip and about every 2 minutes or so, I compulsively took a head count.  Tawanda didn't get permission to come, so we were short one... so only 14.  If the three parents hadn't come, I might have lost my damn mind.

Luckily, they did come and it was a super fun day.  The part that made it fun was the kids saying over and over again how much fun they were having and wanting to take pictures together and their utter disappointment when the day was over.

Success.

Dear God,

Please let a normal principal with a modicrum a reason decide that he/she wants me to work at their school with students' that can ALREADY read (for the most part.)  Then I can spend more time with my girl next year, see my man and be in a good mood, and be pleasant in my personal life.  I promise, God, that I will still work super hard and teach my little heart out everyday.  Moreover, with the sanity that I have in tact, I will extend and motivate my little brianiacs.  I will even be nice and sweet with their overzealous, if not well-intentioned parents, as usual.  Duh, but I'm just saying.  Please, please, please.  Amen and I pledge allegiance.

Panic Attack

My principal is retiring.

FUCK!!!!

This is the equivalent of a company being sold.  New owners.

I really like my principal.  She rocks.  She made it worth it to work extra hard.  When I have a reasonable boss, I am sooo willing to do a lot to get the job done.

The problem with getting a new principal at my current school is that I just have no idea who it could be and I work at a very demanding school.  Even with a small class size, it takes total engagement every second of the day with total structure in order to have a calm and conductive learning environment.  It would be miserable to get a mean principal on top of what can be a stressful environment just on a normal day.

I got in touch with my principal from last year right away.  I really liked her, but I'm a bit unsure of how well she liked me.  It's something that I think I could overcome, because I think it was probably a matter of circumstance more than anything.  I was a middle of the year hire and the parents were already pretty disgruntled.  Things were a little hairy with a few of them at first, but by the end of the year things had really turned around so I'm hopeful that she would remember that over those starting out hiccups.

It would be great to go back to my last campus.  It had a good vibe and I liked the people.  The parents can be a little more involved, but on the other hand... the parents are more involved.  It's a double edged sword, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Lots of staffing decisions in the coming months, so keep your fingers crossed for me.  I need it!!

Blake Linton - 3 Year Old Beaten to Death

So I'm watching Nancy Grace and I can barely stand it.  This 3-year-old little boy, Blake Linton, was beaten to death in the bathtub by his mother's boyfriend.  His liver and brain were lacerated in the beating.    The boyfriend texted the mother that he "lost it this time."  The mother met with the boyfriend and checked her son's pulse, which she said she faintly felt, and yelled his name.  Then the boyfriend took the child and laid him by the side of the road to stage a hit and run car accident.

The elder daughter has had two previous broken arms and the biological father had asked for the children to be removed from the mother's care.  The preacher from her church described her as fun-loving.  The psych-in-a-box says that the mother had an attachment-disorder.

Um... duh.

This story just kills me.

Kills me.

It makes me so mad.  So many kids are put through hell and back by their own parents and it seems like nothing gets done.  It's so hard to see the signs sometimes.  We have to look closely.  We have to be so diligent.  We have to tend our relationships with our students.  We have to build trust.  When we do intervene, we have to call and call and call and call and call.  Be persistent.  Be patient.  Take notes.  Don't give up.  Ask questions.  Pay attention.

Sometimes it takes a long time for a case to be investigated and sometimes it happens so fast.

There's my kids like T.  and then there's the kids like S.  S was wetting her pants almost daily in my reading group.   It smelled like fish.  She wouldn't run around at recess and she would waddle into reading group.  The kids would say... What's that smell?  It took me a while to clue in what was going on.  S. was in another teacher's class.   We talked it over at lunch and recess and one day her teacher encouraged S. to talk with the family specialist about what was going on at home.  Apparently, grandma's boyfriend was beating up S.'s little 2-year-old brother for dropping his bottle.

WHAT THE FUCK?????

S. moved in with her other grandma last week and then they moved to a new house in a new district a few days later.  Her mom has to take classes about abuse before she can see her children again.

In the meantime, T.'s struggle goes on and on and on.  I wonder what the hell happens in her home.  I can't figure out what is the truth and what is a lie.  I don't trust anything about her mother and I just wish I knew that she was safe.

Poor Blake Linton didn't make it elementary school, so that a teacher could ever worry about him.  People have great capacities.... they can be tremendously good and tremendously evil.  I've worn rose-colored glasses for most of my life, but this profession has taught me one sad truth... real evil is out there and it walks among us, looking just the same as anyone else you know.  Always be aware.  Always be alert.  Always do the right thing.

It helps.   Especially when you are watching Nancy Grace just a little too late at night.

The Girl Who Cried Wolf

Good news!

I am a dumb ass.

Well, I'm not actually a dumb ass.  It was just my mistake and my fucking kid cried wolf one too many times, so I assumed that it was her.

She did steal gummy bears from the science lab, though.

I left my keys in the work room.  I've never been so happy to be wrong.

That's all I've got on that at the moment.

Wish my kid didn't try to jack Isaiah's Oreos at the end of the day after all of that.

I wonder if she will ever learn.

Bitch Stole My Ride...

Yes.

I am talking about an 8 year old.

One of my ga-dang kids put their grubby hands in my purse and snatched some old gummy bears and my keys.  It didn't click until the end of the day when I was crouched down next to my car digging through my purse looking for my keys at 5 pm on Friday evening.

Yes.  Friday.  Evening.

Still in my observation window.

Not that I don't usually stay and get ready late one or two nights a week, but point made.

It's Friday and I was ready to go and I'm fishing for my keys and my hand hits the old gummy bears in my purse and then I remember.

We were in the science lab in the morning and a few of the kids tell me that Tawanda is eating gummy bears.  I shrug it off, because she is always eating something and can we please just compare the salt water to the fresh water for Pete's sake???

And now, I'm kicking myself.  She got the effing gummy bears out of my purse.  I had hung it up way out of reach.  I have been locking away all of their stuff and just hanging up my stuff thinking that was enough of a deterrent.  I guess that was wrong.

It had been a hell of a day.  Started out kind of rough.  Tawanda told me that she was getting beat up at her apartment.  Geneva confirmed it.  There was a fire drill.  The sub didn't come for Ms. Jetson, so we had to split her class and we had 4 kids join us.  We went to the science lab.  At recess, a police helicopter landed on the school gym and the principal announced a soft lockdown due to an armed robbery at the gas station a few blocks away.

Three kids cried.  I don't blame them.  The helicopter thing was scary.  Tawanda told me that she was mad at me and wanted me to give her something.  I explained that I am not a money tree.

Ahhhh!  Fuck. Fuck.  Fuck.  Long ass day.  I think she was so pissed that she took my keys and by the end of the day had a change of heart or was scared that she would get caught with them and pitched them before she got on the bus.

This is not good.  It sucks for me that some of Tawanda's acting out is directed towards me.  I don't know how to help her sometimes.

I'm not perfect.  I forget things.  Like reminding her to do x or y or z.  Or I forget to pick my purse up off the floor when we have a schedule change.  Or I get distracted sometimes.  I'm just human and I don't respond perfectly in every situation.  I'm not a robot.  I wish I was...  Sometimes, I really wish I was.

And in the Course of Writing This.... I Had an Epiphany.......Or Two.........A Blog Formerly Titled "Their Way... Or the Highway"

The thing that sucks about being a teacher is that you are just that...

just the teacher.

Sometimes it's just not up to you.  Plus, you have to do everything their way.  The administration's way.  And even when you like your administration, you forget what the heck their way is.  This is a double edged sword, because the odds are is that your admin is doing it someone else's way, too.  They have to follow some set of rules out there that is set by a person or group of people that they may or may not agree with and that is a whole other slew of problems.  And you may or may not know about any of that.

This is my current problem.  That and all of the cosmic stars are aligning, so that I look like a real jackass.

The truth is that I have made excellent notes about the Tawanda situation, but my paper trail with actual behavior referrals sucks.  I should have done a way better job and I focused far to much on my relationships with my administration and behavior specialists to handle things.  I've done a terrible job with documenting her on an hourly basis.  (Jeezzz.... I'm a teacher, not a psych warden, ya know?)

It's just so dang overwhelming with all of the other crap.  I'm super pissed at myself for not keeping up on these referrals.  I'm kicking myself over it.  It's way different in this district than it was in my last district, so I have avoided it.  Not because I didn't understand it, but because I didn't really remember to go to it as an option.  I used to write referrals all the time back at Bowie, but the process is just different here and even though I think it's a better process, it's not one that I ever really got effective at using.  Honestly,  I ought to use the referral process for my other kids, too.

When Tawanda was better on the medication, there wasn't much to do and I took it for granted.  I shouldn't have.  When she kicks it into gear, the kid kicks it into gear.  Then I tossed out the idea of "right of refusal", back tracked on it, and thought I was going to get a couple of days of her in behavior intervention for her, eh, crimes.

Instead, she just got put back in my class with a stern warning and I've been given a lot of instructions about documentation.  If she goes back onto meds, it shouldn't be a huge deal.  She is supposed to go back on them on Tuesday morning.  In my heart, I have a gut feeling that if she shows up without them that she's gonna get pulled and that is why admin put her in my class again.

Wow.

That actually just hit me.

Part of me thought it was because I was unexpectedly absent yesterday, since my daughter was sick and I was in my observation window and that seems like a jackass move on my part to be out during my window.  (Note: I couldn't help it.  Nobody could help me and she still needed another day away from daycare.)  I guess that is just lingering feelings of paranoia from being at Bowie, where Mrs. Trout just always thought the worst of everyone and Mr. Daniels would try to burn you like you were an ant and he was a magnifying glass, if he thought you were trying to wiggle out of something.

My admin now isn't like that.

Seriously, I over-think things sometimes.  You know what they say, your biggest strength is always your greatest weakness.  Sometimes, I need to go the simple route.  Nice people do nice things.  People that have integrity do the right thing when nobody is looking, so just trust that its the right thing even if you don't like it.

Hmmmmm.  Back to my epiphany.

I think there is a sizable chance that Friday could be the last day for Tawanda to be in my class.  I don't want to baby her.  I've thought that before and I did baby her that day.... a little.  I don't think it was good for the other kids and perhaps it hurt her somehow.  But if I can figure some things out to help her have a great day, then it would be worth the energy.

Just in case.

I know that I complain a lot about my job on this blog.  But I love the kids in my class.  I love inspiring them to learn and dream about their future and instilling a little bit of hope in their hearts.  I lose a grip on what matters from time to time.  I have to catch my own heart and put it on a positivity de-fib.

I make choices between what is right for someone else's child and my own and sometimes I feel guilty that I put my kid second.  I have to constantly work harder, smarter, faster, and better, so that I can make that choice less and less.  I want to serve this community without shorting my own family.

It's tough, but I think I'm getting closer to being able to do it.  I think that is why I write this blog.  For those days when I do forget, so I can find a little morsel about teaching that reminds why I do it.

Just in case.