Is It Recess Yet?

Sad Day

Well, I must admit that in all my years teaching( and I've been at it many years) I never had a child steal anything from me. That is until today. I have always been so trusting that I am shocked and taken back that one of the kids would really take something from me. Money has been left untouched, candy sat for days, my cell phone, my purse...But, leave a video game, and it is swiped faster than you can blink your eye. It was a small gameboy cartridge which I took from a boy during class. I placed it on my desk. Throughout the day it became mixed in with papers. Yet, it was always there until I looked for it to return it to the owner. Gone. It was gone and I could not believe it. A little girl knew it was gone. She made the comment that it was stolen.....I asked her why and she laughed at me as though she couldn't believe I could be so dumb.
I guess I was dumb. Never again will I leave anything out. What a sad day not to be able to trust.

Why am I torturing myself?

There are days when I ask myself why I am even trying to teach children who do not want guidance. At least they act as though they do not want to get an education. Most of my day today was spent telling kids to stop talking, throw away your gum (school rule, not mine), sit up in your chair, take your feet off the chair, throw away your gum, and on and on. I came home worn out and feeling as though I got very little accomplished. Granted, kids have changed with the times. It just seems as though the schools have not changed with the times. It's a jungle teaching school, and it's the teachers who are trying to survive! Maybe tomorrow will be better....

Monday Morning Meetings

Who in their right mind schedules a meeting before the start of school on a Monday? Mondays are hard enough without having to arrive at school thirty minutes early to attend a "much needed" grade chair meeting. That was the start of my busy school week. RIDICULOUS! There were a million things I could have been doing during this time! Instead, I had to listen to teachers bicker over what month each grade wanted to provide entertainment at the PTA meetings. If the parents want entertainment, I should invite them to sit in on my class when I am collecting homework. The excuses kids try to give for not completing an assignment are quite comical. In one day I heard: " My mom didn't put it in my backpack."... Uh, you are in sixth grade now. Does your mom really pack your backpack for you?..."I didn't have a pencil at home to do it." ...You have at least twenty mechanical pencils in your desk. I have at least ten of your pencils in my desk which I have taken from you because you play with them, and you couldn't find one pencil at home to do your homework? ......"I was too tired after playing my video games."......No comment........."My brother squeezed ketchup all over it when we were at McDonalds. He was playing around. He's bad." You had your homework at McDonalds?......."I had to go to soccer practice."...No comment.........."What homework? Did we have homework?"....Did you write your homework in your assignment book?.."What assignment book?"...No comment........."It was here. I don't know where it went." .......It just got up and walked out of you notebook? Amazing, absolutely amazing!........The list goes on and on. Sadly, the kids are quite serious about their excuses and expect me to actually accept their excuses! Now that's entertainment. By the way, I took the month of May as the sixth graders time to "entertain". If only teachers could do what we were hired to do....teach!!

For some reason I have done anything and everything today just to avoid writing my weekly lesson plans. I am a definite procrastinator! I've always wanted to start my own blog and now is as good a time as any. Besides, it's another "to do" before getting out the old books. No matter what I plan or what I do, the kids have one thing only on their mind...RECESS! We could be in middle of reading a story, taking a spelling test, or even walking down the hall to art class, and without fail, someone will ask,"When's recess?" It doesn't matter what grade you're teaching, recess is the most important time of the day for kids. Lunch is a close second. Thus, the title of my blog, "Is It Recess Yet?" seemed most appropriate.