AuburnChick's Adventures

Oh word, but if I’d known what yesterday would bring, I think I would have stayed home with the covers pulled over my head.

It started off with a 7am parent conference.  I rushed out early and guess what?  The parent did not show.  Her son met me at my door and told me that his mom had woken up with a fever.

Sigh.

Then, first period rolled around and the class that I love so much forgot their manners.

One young man in particular has been walking on edge for several days, and I haven’t been able to figure out why.  I’ve been very cautious and have tried hard not to be the thing that pushes him over.  As a result, I have put up with a few things that I probably shouldn’t have.

Today, I just could not ignore the disruptive behavior any more, so I decided we needed space from each other.

He spent the day in in-school suspension.

That was not a good way to begin the day.

My next two classes came in, and something similar happened in each of them, with a student being removed/leaving from each of those classes.

Sigh.

Teaching can be very challenging.  As a teacher, you have to try to work things out in the classroom; however, sometimes bad/disrespectful/disruptive behavior continues to the point where the learning process is severely hampered, and other students are affected.

Needless to say, it was not an easy day.

Despite all of that, I did not find myself in tears.

Surprise, surprise.

I cried half of my first and second years teaching.

Maybe I’m growing up.

😀

What I wanted to share the most, though, was something funny that happened in the middle of the day.

Remember the first student I told you about?

Well, after first period, I went to Barbara’s office to get some feedback about the way I’d handled a quiz and how the rest of my day’s lesson plans should be tweaked.

Before I could say a word, Barb stopped me.

She had her own story to tell.

My student had paid her a visit while on a potty break.  Her office is across from ISD.

He walked in and immediately began complaining.

He then proceeded to tell her that there was something wrong with me…that I wasn’t acting right.

She laughed as she continued to tell me the story.

She assured him that everything seemed okay with me.

“Naw,” he said.  “You don’t understand.  Something is really wrong with her.  She’s got a personal problem that’s so deep she can’t tell even her best friend.”

Hmmm.

As Barb told me this story, I couldn’t help but find it ironic that my student was expressing some of the same concerns that I had been expressing about him, only he couldn’t use the same logic on himself.

Barb and I got a real kick out of the whole thing, and every time I saw Barb later that day, she would laugh.

In fact, when I was walking back to my classroom during lunch, I ran into her, the principal, and my friend, Maegan.

My face must have looked exactly like I was feeling…a bit overwhelmed.

Mr. Principal looked at me quizzically.

I responded by saying, “Don’t mind me.  I’m just mulling over the fact that I’ve got some deep personal problem that I don’t even know about.”

Barb started cackling, and she told him the story.

Lord have mercy.

Of course, I didn’t feel any better when, upon arriving home and telling the story to the Mr., he responded by saying, “I’ve been telling you for years that you have a problem.  That’s nothing new!”

Sheesh.

So, if you need me, I’ll be in the padded white room…trying to reach into the furthest recesses of my mind to uncover the mysterious “problem” the student diagnosed me as having.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: education, teaching |