Monday, August 16, 2010

Hoo buddy

I'm back in the land of the ankle-biters next week - where the eff did this summer go? This week DCPS teachers are attending professional development at their schools from 8:00-3:30. Today about 1/3 of the material was actually relevant to my instruction - the rest dealt with test-taking grades. This wouldn't be terrible if I didn't have 847,293 things to do to make my classroom ready for students again. I spent an hour rearranging furniture (there goes the lovely waxed floor, sorry custodial staff) and will probably re-rearrange it tomorrow.

I'm starting to get a panicky, hummingbird-on-cocaine feeling whenever I think about the school year starting - so I'm spending most of the day feeling like a coked-out bird.



There's just so much going on, from all over the place.
This is kind of petty, but why was I the only instructor on the entire first floor who didn't receive a pad of chart paper? I wouldn't care, but a) that shit is expensive and b) this is not the first time I've been shorted on supplies. I don't know who I pissed off, but I will do anything to apologize. And some recent legislation sent stock from Jim's company down the tubes and added a bajillion more hoops for them to jump through. I have a new paraprofessional and I'm nervous about working with her. My school didn't make AYP for the third year in a row - if we don't make it this year, the school closes. Period. It's not a tragedy for me, because we'll be moving anyway after our two-year commitments are up, but a couple of the teachers have worked at the school since it opened 30 years ago. And my principal created an elaborate schedule for the preschool/pre-k classes that, while certainly rigorous, seems to have no basis in reality. It takes two grown women longer than 5 minutes to use the bathroom - how does it make sense to allot that same amount of time to 16 three-year-olds?

And deep down I'm absolutely terrified that once the kids are back in my classroom, it'll be just as awful and miserable as it was last year.

I need more primates.


Orangutan says chill the fuck out, Lisa.


3 comments:

I Hate to Weight said...

i can not tell you how much i hope it is a zillion times better than last year.

i CAN understand your anxiety.

and yes, WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO.

ola said...

http://www.zoopraha.cz/upload/fck/mlade%20kijivu.JPG

your three years old are 98% compatible with primates;)
And they were very creative with using classroom/another students/your clothes as bathroom, weren´t they?
Every day you are more experienced and greater teacher Lisa!

Sarah at Journeying With Him said...

Like you, I'm contracted through a third party to teach (I think that's how TFA works, right?) I am also nervous about my students being the same and/or worse as my students last year, and my room doesn't have a working tv, a DVD player, a projector, a computer, or any of the things the other teachers have, PLUS it wasn't cleaned all summer (I had to clean it myself, which meant removing DEAD SPIDER EXOSKELETONS,) and I was also stressed about readying the room for students while I sat through training sessions on material I've already taught.

I hope you can take some time to create a calm before the storm. Go read some magazines at Barnes and Noble or take a walk by some water or something. I know that has helped me! I know everything will be ready in time, and I have decided that I am not going to stress about the students until Tuesday (our first day of school) when I have some sort of basis for my stress level.