Sunday, November 24, 2019
I have a lot of hallway drama and a shining light story on the agenda for today. Lets see, I have drama and I have a shining light so quoting Roseanne Roseannadanna, "it's always something, if it ain't one thing it's another," so I'll start with the drama.
I haven't written about the hallway in quite a while so I'll start there. T6-M is at the far end of the hallway walking around by himself, as he has been doing a lot for almost half the school year. Something in his home classroom had to be bothering him so when that happens he just gets up and walks out into the hallway. As he was pacing around I got his attention and signaled for him to join me at my half round table. As soon as he sat down his facial expression told me to remain silent and just let him sit there until he relaxes. Unfortunately, the two fifth grade classrooms were rotating and for some reason the two T5's don't join their scholars in the hallway so it gets ridiculously loud. T6-M does not like noise so instead of sitting their with him hoping he will de-escalate he started escalating. As he escalated, he started talking to himself with his voice inflection getting louder so, if T6-M's teacher of record likes it or not, it's my call. "T6-M, let's talk a walk," I said. He hesitated so I spoke again. "This hallway is way to loud let's move down to the other end of the hallway until it quiets down."
When we reached the end of the hallway I turned around and saw that the hallway was still crowded with scholars so we went through the fire door and down the stairway. At one point I asked T6-M if he was alright. His responded, "this school is getting real bad." Sadly, I couldn't disagree with him as this school, that I've thoroughly enjoyed coming to for seven years, has issues that need to be addressed and right now I don't think the school has enough personnel to do.
Next on the drama list is this anger eruption. The T5 classroom door opened, then slammed closed, and T6-F, with an angry look on her face, is heading past me down the hallway. "Where are you going?" I asked her. "I'm mad so I'm leaving the classroom," was the response I received. "You can be mad if you want but if you walk down that hallway where no one can see you then you will be in a lot of trouble. So, why don't you just sit right here by me and stay out of trouble." T6-F then took a seat right across from me. "Why are you so mad?" I asked. "My friend in that classroom is mad at me." "Why is your friend mad at you?" "She is mad at me because I'm trying to make new friends." "Well, let me tell you this. You can have as many friends as you like and if someone doesn't like that then maybe you should ignore that person rather than getting so mad and walk out of the classroom." After a few more minutes T6-F's facial expression showed me that she had relaxed and I sensed that the drama was over. I looked at T6-F and suggested that she go back into the classroom and she did without further incident.
It's a different day, same T5 classroom as above, and this drama does not have anger, it has emotions on full display. T4 and I are on our way to the library to do some laminating. As I exited our classroom door I looked over at the half round table and there was a T5-F sitting at the table. After walking down the hallway for about twenty feet I thought to myself, "why is that girl sitting there," so I turned around to look at her. When I did it looked like she was crying but I chose to continue down the hallway. When the laminating project was completed I headed back to the classroom and noticed that the same girl was sitting at the table and she was definitely crying.
When I reached my half round table I took a seat right next to her and asked, "why are you crying?" T5-F's head immediately dropped down onto her forearm and the crying escalated. I hesitated and then said to her. "Put you head up and look at me. I'm not a teacher, I'm not even an employee of the school. All I am is a volunteer that helps T4 with math and I think that makes me the perfect person for you to talk to." Surprisingly that worked and this is what she told me between the tears. "My brother ran away from home yesterday." Jesus, now what do I do. After telling T5-F that I was so sorry to hear about her brother I said to her, "I think it would be best for you to talk to OH-SW about your brother, would you like me to call her?" There was a hesitation but she said, "yes," so I walked into T4's classroom and made the telephone call. The Admin Czar at the front desk answered the telephone and informed me that OH-SW was not in the building. That is not what I wanted to hear so I explained to the Admin Czar what was going on. She informed me that she'll find someone to come up to the classroom to help me.
A couple minutes later BigB#4 turned the hallway corner and was headed in my direction. When she took a seat across from me she asked T5-F what was wrong. T5-F's head dropped down on her forearm again and started crying. When BigB#4 looked at me I quietly told her what T5-F told me. After a bit of persuasion, BigB#4 convinced T5-F to walk down to her office with her and I went back into T4's classroom.
Tuesday, November 27, 2019
I know, I'm late, and I've already been called a slacker. When you are called a slacker you have to make a decision. Should I continue with the shining lights that I mentioned in the title of the blog or go in a whole different direction and talk about back injuries and the weird things I observed the injured person doing. To keep peace in the classroom I'll stick with shining lights.
"Schultz, I have to give a presentation in front of the faculty and school leadership soon and I need you to listen to my speech. So you know, I'm really nervous about giving this speech." "What are you nervous about, you're in front of the scholars every day?" "This is different. I don't like giving speeches as I get real nervous, I'm afraid that I will mess up, and this speech will be in front of my peers." "Okay, lets hear it."
T4 is holding her hand written notes, that were in pencil, she starts her speech, and I'm listening. I'll be paraphrasing as the incident took place a couple weeks ago and I can't recall T4's exact wording but it goes something like this.
T4 is speaking. "It's the start of the school day. The scholars just arrived in the classroom and they are loud and off task. I'm sitting at my desk and I'm thinking to myself, I don't think I can do this today. The morning procedure has been the same all school year so why can't these scholars just start their work and be quiet. Every day, day after day, I have to deal with scholars who just don't get it and it gets so frustrating. As I'm looking around the room to determine what I'm going to do to survive this day I saw T4-M sitting at his desk near the corner of the classroom. As I'm looking at T4-M I noticed that he was sitting quietly, he was doing his morning work, and this thought entered my mind. There is my shining light. The one scholar that is doing what he is supposed to be doing and it is this scholar that is going to help me make it through this day. All day, I'm going to focus entirely on T4-M, and give him the best that I can give. If the others want to follow along fine but today I focusing totally on my shining light."
T4 continues and I'm still listening. "Back in October I took sixty fourth grade scholars to camp for the day. The amount of work put forth to bring this off was very time consuming and, just like the classroom, keeping things under control was exhausting. Will you stop talking, listen to your group activity leader so you will know what to do, when we move from one activity to another stay together as a group, please stop talking and pay attention. As we neared the end of our time at camp I decided to take the scholars down to a little creek that ran through the camp. Before we arrived at the creek I gathered up all the scholars and told them that they could walk out into the creek but only so far and they were not supposed to get soaking wet. It was like I didn't even talk to them. Water was being splashed everywhere, scholars were getting soaking wet and again I thought to myself why do I continue to do this. Then I saw T4-M (not the same one as above) standing in the creek and he had this look of pure joy on his face and I knew I found my shining light that will help me make it though the day."
For the sake of time I'm going to skip the conclusion of T4's practice speech. When she finished I told her I loved it. In fact, now that I've retold it I like it even better. It was the perfect story to tell the faculty as I'm certain everyone of the them has had the same struggles that T4 has and every one of them needed to search for their shining light to survive the day.
The first half of the school year is rapidly approaching. At the halfway point of the school year T4 and I will have spent ninety days in close proximity to each other and you know what. Despite the challenges that our school corporation faces, despite the challenges that our school faces, despite the challenges that occur when trying to teach math to fifty plus fourth grade scholars every day, I have the pleasure of sitting at the hexagon in the middle of the classroom watching this shining light do what she does best, teach.
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