Thursday, November 18, 2004

I survived!

Today was a long-ass day. After school, there was a brief union meeting, and then I hung out in the teacher center. Got some food with colleagues, then had to run up to my room and get things ready.

Hoo boy. I had a backlog at my door, and felt like a doctor's office receptionist, calling out the next name on the list. I saw 44 parents in two and a half hours. It was insane. The AP actually had to come in and tell me to time it for two minutes with each parent. Yikes.

A few parents were upset at my timing policy for turning in homework. I just agreeably said, "okay," when they told me they had a problem with it. I stand firm on it, because the students need to learn the responsibility to not only do the work, but make sure to turn it in on time. Every single day they know they must get it in. Often I don't actually refuse homework, but I did today. Because you know what? The line must be drawn. I can't keep accepting things, because then it's not fair. Kids still try to dash off something in class and turn that in. If I give them more than five minutes, it's too easy to pretend they did it when they didn't.

However, almost all the parents were "easy." I just showed them the grade grid, and how many homeworks their child had or had not done this quarter, and they turned to their kid and asked them why they hadn't done it. The kids, of course, had nothing to say, so they just stood there, looking a bit ashamed.

I am tired. But I am proud of myself, I got through it pretty smoothly. I did not panic, and I did not engage the upset parents, and I was pleasant and professional (I think so, anyway!).

Classes today were quite good, actually. We finally got to the poem writing. They only had time to start it though; we'll continue tomorrow. Class A was a completely different class than yesterday. Ms F was there too, which obviously is a big help, but not an indicator of my own skill at managing them. Also, Mr AP/supervisor visited my room for the first time. That was the first time anyone was officially in my room during my teaching. I don't know when I'll get feedback about it. Ms F said that he said it was pretty good.

Class B was okay. Class C was fine. Except for this girl that got up and stalked out of the room, out of the blue, without permission. The whole class was like, what the hell? Very odd.

Anyway, it's 10pm, I caught the end of the Apprentice--two firings!! And oh man, is it time for bed. All week I've been plagued by too much thinking and not enough relaxing while trying to sleep. The next present I'm getting myself is a professional massage. My neck is tensing up something fierce, and I just plain need to relax.

Have a happy Friday tomorrow, y'all.

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