I am ....

EXAUSTED!  There were many times today that I thought about my boss and wondered how she does it everyday.  Granted, she is not trying to teach a class of 2nd graders at the same time, but still.

I was Teacher In Charge (TIC) today.  I told my husband at some point during the day that I didn't ever want to get my Master's.  Everything was quiet first thing and when I got to almost 9:15 without incident, I thought I was good.  Nope.  Right when I was explaining to my class the job I would have to do today (I've done it before and they know what to do if I need to leave quickly), I could hear one of our Spec Ed students screaming in the hallway.  I went to check it out and ended up being in that situation for around 45 mins.  My kids went about their business and my neighbouring teachers looked in on them.  After that, I managed to get back into my room for 30 mins to do some reading assessments before recess.


ON the way to the staffroom, I hear wailing from another Spec Ed student in the grade 1 room.  I got in there to see the Reading Recovery teacher standing beside here with a firm look on her face.  The little person was fussing because she was mad she didn't get to go outside with her friends.  (She'd decided to waste her lesson time, so she had to make it up.)  I put a quick end to that nonsense and saw her off with the RR teacher.

 I got into the staffroom for a snack, but on the way through the secretary told me that something was in the toilet in the boys' bathroom.  Goody.  I grabbed a piece of fruit before I dealt with that, and just as I sat down, she came back in to tell me that I had 2 clients to deal with.  Fighting on the playground.  One of the students involved was a student I had last year, so I knew how to deal with him.  He spent a few minutes with me in my room after recess until he was ready to go back to class.

I almost got through the next hour of Math (and more assessing) and a lesson on apostrophes when about 2 minutes until lunch, I get a visit from the grade5/6 teacher.  He has sent a client to the office for me.  Apparently, the young gentleman got mad when a classmate returned property he'd stolen to the rightful owner.  He rewarded the intruder with a hard shoulder while walking past.  Now, I wasn't even sure I knew this student, and I was pretty sure he was going to be at least as big as me.  He'd taken advantage of the lunch bell and had buggered outside.  I had him paged back into the office.  We had a chat and he joined the collection of kids I had in the office.  2 kids playing lego and my fighter.  He stayed with me the whole lunch hour and because he had no lunch, I shared some of mine.  We got along fine, and in the end he went back to class.  I told him that if he needed to, I had some space in my classroom for him.  He go the message and I didn't hear of him again.

The fighter got to go back to class to eat lunch and his spot was taken by a 2nd grader who decided that throwing rocks at other kids was a fun game.  I still had the big kid in there, so we all had a talk about throwing rocks and bodies in anger.  Then we talked about video games.  I can only be mad for so long.

I did manage to eat my sandwich before I headed back to class.  We made it through about 20 mins of silent reading, before my fighter showed up with a sour face and an angry TOC.  He'd decided that he "hated all TOC's" proclaiming his innocence all the way down the hallway.  My kids were getting agendas done, getting an art project finished and getting ready for gym.  He took his work to the office to finish while we were in gym and then I used him to start a writing lesson in class.  When he uses he powers for good instead of evil, he's great.  He finished out his day with me.

At the bell I needed to make sure my kids were out the door and noone was left behind.  At sometime while I was running back and forth between the busses and the halls, an older student allegedly choked another boy.  Yay.  I didn't hear about that until 3:30 or so.  I had to make 2 parent phone calls, which were not so bad.  Then I touched base with the Fighter's teacher.

I waved with honesty at those buses today as they left the school yard.  I left at 4pm, exhausted.  I don't know how she does it every single day.