Yeah, so it has been one of those sorts of days. Which of the following scenarios would describe an ideal Friday for you?
a) All students work diligently and complete all tasks with a smile.
b) Administration provides breakfast snacks and lunch for all teachers with no strings attached or questions asked.
c) At the end of the day, everything is cleaned up and put away.
d) Utter chaos and pandemonium break out and you still manage to escape with all your wits in tact.
How about secret option e), which is false. Or orange. Maybe even the Runaway Scrape if my class has anything to do with the choices.
I always love sharing good times, and so I will let the good times roll starting right....now. Ok, that was enough time for you to prepare and brace yourself for the excitement that will shortly ensue. I start off the day only to discover that there are muffins in the teacher's lounge! And juice! Yeah for food! I think that things can only get better.
As I take my troops to 312, I find out that there is a social studies benchmark that they have to take (damn these assessments!). It isn't enough that I am trying to complete my own assessments for an incentive pay program. I am surprised that my kids didn't gang up and slit my tires.
Don't even get me started on my assessments. It is as if my students suddenly opened their little heads and let their brains run free. Uh, yeah. It is amazing that we have done the same sorts of things over and over all year long, and suddenly we have become lost and bewildered; helpless and hopeless, oh so woe begotten. I cry to myself and wonder where I led the dear ones astray. Sigh. I didn't need the extra money from the incentive pay. I use $100 bills for toilet paper anyway.
In the mix of all this specialness, I am tossing things at random all over my room as I attempt to clean up while the kids are testing. I consider rolling around in all the paper and supplies. At that moment, I hear a knock at the door and guess what is on the other side? If you said a new student, ding ding ding, we have a winner! A new kid with like 3 weeks of school left. I am greeting Mom and my room looks like it has been hit with a bomb. Awesomeness...
New student means kids lose focus on the assessments, and pretty much morning is shot. Of course, Bill introduces himself as the most special person in the class, and all the kids agree. I need a hug and start hugging myself, only for the art teacher to inform me later that that is called turtling. Yeah, so rock on with the turtling awesomeness that will become my entire day.
There is lunch. KIS is absent, so I get to go on time...yeah! But then sub doesn't pick up kids in time (boo!) so my other teammate and I wind up taking the kids from the other group and picking up others at random places of the school. Way to go! And the art teacher complains-I mean shares suggestions about collaboration -about KIS, and I have to let her know that KIS acts the same way with everyone. She'd probably treat a convicted criminal and Ghandi with the same stank attitude she treats us with at work-kids included. I think her personality needs a bath because it stinks.
Afternoon comes around, and my kids are still testing. I find myself looking forward to next Thursday, when all of this will be over. That is sad. I feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing, my room still looks like it got hit by some natural disaster, and Bill has now thrown up on my floor and on books. I send him to the nurse, and what do you think happened?
a) Nurse takes temperature and sends him home.
b) Nurse asks for a slip even though he still reeks of barf.
c) Bill returns to room and stays for rest of the day.
d) Eggs?
Yeah, so Bill is on my floor, laying down and ripping his shirt. He came in with a t-shirt, left with a halter top. Yeah. As I am marveling at the wonders of this, administration bum rushes me with cameras to take pictures of me for their recruitment shpell. They then proceeded to ask me about all my accomplishments this year. I think of my feeling of failure with the assessments and asked to do it later because I wasn't in the best mood, but they insisted it couldn't wait. Then I get a call from another principal at another school asking me to teach 5th grade at summer school. Here is a snippet of the conversation for your listening pleasure:
Me: Hello, how may I help you?
Other Principal Lady: Hello, I was calling to see if you are interested in teaching summer school.
Me: (watching Bill spin in circles on my carpet) What?
Other Principal Lady: You know, teach summer school. To teach 5th grade math....
Me: What?
OPL: Your principal recommended you. Plus we think it will be good for the kids to see familiar faces.
Me: (mouthing silently) What?
OPL: I need to know by this weekend. Here is my cell. Call me and let me know.
Me: What? Uh, Ok.....
Yeah, I sound kind of like Lil' Jon, the rapper in this exchange. I pretty much just say what and ok. It doesn't even matter that I am already participating in a math/science academy that I was chosen to be in (only 10 teachers in our entire district got chosen and I was one) or that I have been asked to help with the math curriculum on both a district and campus level. All of these events happen in the summer, mind you, when people rest and drink margaritas. I would like to plan things with my new teammates (cause yeah, they are like shoes, I get at least a new pair every year).
I become the wicked witch of the west, and my poor kids get the brunt of it. The peace of mind they have is in thinking Beyonce is going to roll by our classroom on a flatbed with a smoke machine (I wonder where they got that crazy idea....*shifts eyes back and forth*). I gotta find a flatbed and a wig...any takers?