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European Union (EU) laws require you to give EU visitors information about cookies used on you blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. What? I'm not in Europe and to the best of my knowledge I don't use any cookies, I just type letters and occasionally add pictures. There was another paragraph of mumble-jumble that I didn't understand and then I caught a break as the last paragraph was from BlogSpot.com. As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to help meet these regulations. I'm glad this was resolved because plans to visit Greece in about a year are in the making and it would be real embarrassing to be arrested while visiting the country with say, as far west as Utah and her friend who is just as far west.
Here are the irritants, her's not mine, and the order they occurred.
- During our literacy block there are four books that we will be using during the first part of the school year. Each book discusses schools in different parts of the world; Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, and West Virginia. Gnu had purchased the books herself prior to the start of the school year and it cost her approximately $56.00 not including taxes. We started our literacy block visiting Africa and Gnu stated "I wish we had a more copies so everyone could have their own book." She then asked me to check the school library to see if there were any copies on the shelf. When I inquired, I was told the school had purchased this book and the other three so that each scholar would have one. I told this to Gnu and her response was, "I wish someone had told me that before I purchased my copies." She then asked me to go and search for our copies of the book. I was directed to the Title I teacher and was told by her that all of the books had been distributed to the teachers with copies for all of their students. Although I was getting a bit agitated I politely stated, where then are the copies for our classroom. The response was I'm not sure but you should be able to borrow a few copies from one of the teachers that received all of their copies. When I return to the classroom I handed the copies of the book to Gnu with her asking "can we keep these."" My response was no, they came from another classroom and there are no additional copies for our classroom." I can't recall her exact words but it went something like this, "are we not a part of this school?" "I just spent my own money to buy these books when I should have been given a copy by the school!" "How is that possible?"
- I'm sitting on the steps of the stage that is located in the gym as it is recess time. Gnu is not present because she had to attend a meeting. About five minutes into recess she arrived and sat next to me, "I'm so angry," she says. "I was at a curriculum meeting and every time I spoke up with an idea the other teachers in the room either talked over me or did not even acknowledge that I had an opinion." "I wanted to suggest that they do a lesson on Greek mythology as it went so well in our classroom." "They wouldn't listen to what I had to say." To say Gnu was a little hot is an understatement and fortunately the scholars were far enough away that they didn't hear this conversation.
- For those of you that are not aware, there is a teacher shortage going on and it's had an impact on my school corporation. One area that has been impacted is special education teachers. Keep that in mind as I move forward. The scholars have not arrived and Gnu and I are in the classroom alone. "You won't believe what I found out this morning," Gnu said. "Our school corporation is having difficulty hiring special education teachers so they decided to raise the starting salary for new special education teachers to entice them to join our school corporation." "So, as it stands right now, a first year special education teacher is making more money that I am and there is no plan to adjust my salary." I shared this particular irritant with a good friend of mine from the Wine Drinking Wednesday group at Vino Villa. Just before I got to the part about a first year teacher making money more than Gnu and Gnu not getting an increase he interrupted said, "no, don't tell me that." He then continued, "what the ..... are these people thinking?" My sentiments exactly, how and the hell can they justify doing this?
- Here is the last irritant, Week Three and it SUCKED. I'm picking up from last Thursday. The scholars are out of the classroom and are heading home. Gnu and I are alone in the classroom and she is checking her cell phone. She looks up at me and says, "I can't take this any more." "The principal from another school district has been trying to convince me to join her team and I'm going to contact her and set up an meeting." It's pretty rare that I'm at a loss for words but when she told me this I just sat there as I didn't know what to say. When I gathered my thoughts I walked up to her and said, "it was a tough week and you need to do what is in your best interest and I'm good with that." Just before I walked away I said one last thing to her, "you can't leave."
Week Four. It's Monday and Gnu went about her business all day but not once did she smile. Early in the day she was working with EM on his new vocabulary words. She went through the words once with him and he read more than half of the words correctly. When I saw how well he did the first time going through his new words I reached for a Post It note and wrote the following in cursive so the scholars couldn't read it, "his reading continues to get better, you can't leave" and I handed it to her. At the end of the day I asked her if she was doing all right. She said, "I'm fine." I said to her, "something is different but I can't think of a word to describe what I thought." I finally said you look "out of sorts" and then I left for the day. About half way home the word I was searching for came to mind, "depressed." Tuesday was not much different than Monday, no smiles and no laughter. All I could do was to continue writing Post It notes and hand them to her when things went well. As with Monday, the Post It notes were written in cursive and always ended with "you can't leave." It's now Wednesday and finally a smile and a laugh came out of her. Later Wednesday evening, when I was home, I recalled a quote that I read on an ESPN app for their new magazine called "The Undefeated." It went like this, "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." - Maya Angelou. It's now Thursday morning and I arrived at school real early as I had a project to complete and hopefully I could complete it before Gnu arrived. With an ink pen in hand and one 3x5 lined card in front of me I recreated the Maya Angelou quote and sat in the center of her desk so she could see it when she arrived. When she arrived nothing was said about the 3x5 card but she did ask me to make some copies of the worksheets she'd be using for the day so off I went. It's now 3:45pm or so and I say to her that it was a pretty good day and she agreed. On to Friday. IvyL just completed her group session with the scholars and I'm straightening up the room. As I walk by Gnu's desk I see the Maya Angelou quote and it was moved to a new location and scotch taped to her desk. It took that as a good sign. It's 11:25am and time to take the scholars to specials and today it is music class. I take the scholars and Gnu stays behind as she has to finalize a lesson plan for the scholars. As I'm sitting in the music class it pops into my head that I never left her a Post It note saying "you can't leave" on Thursday. So out comes my cell phone and I send her the following text message, "I forgot to mention this on Thursday so I'm going to get it in early on Friday, you can't leave." About ten minutes later I get this response, and by the way, I hate texting shorthand but I'll write it as I received it. "Lol! I never even filled out the application. I'm not leaving. I love these kids too much despite the times they act like Satan's spawn." Music class is now over and Gnu is in the hallway waiting for the scholars to exit the room. I maneuver my way around the scholars and walk up to her and we exchange high fives, she smiles, I smile, and then we headed to recess.
I've learned a lot about myself in the three plus years that I have had a view from the back of the room and what I learned best on this particular day was how I could hide the fact that I had tears in my eyes while sitting in a music class. That's it. I'm out. Thanks for continue to reading my blog.
Crap! I just remember something. We started using the iPads with great success. As of this date, we are using apps about time, fractions, money, vocabulary, math, and story writing. While all five of the scholars are involved, these apps have been particularly helpful for Grr! and EM our two weakest readers. I'll get a little more specific in the next blog Kuerbs.
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