I teach intervention reading on a middle school level. It's my first year. I've felt like I'm drowning, and classes either run great or terribly. But one of my various tangled web of bosses called in outside support! A consultant for the curriculum I use.
My classes alternate. On one day I have set 1, on the other day I have set 2. The consultant came to see me on Set 2, 4th period. (S2 4.) She raved about it. I connected the material to their lives, we had meaningful conversations, the group rotations ran smoothly. A+++ and a sticker with a smiley face on it.
It turns out she was coming back again. She wanted to see S2 4 again, but was scheduled on an S1 day. So she's coming in to see S1 4.
If S2 4 runs like a well-oiled machine, S1 4 runs like someone dumped acid and a few random pieces of bone into the machine. It runs a specific, predictable way, but never well.
We talk before the class starts, while the students are at lunch. I lay out how the class goes:
Me: Alright. We'll have a few students who are late. The class will get rowdier once they come in. This class will start to fall apart 20 minutes in. By 40 minutes in all will be lost. Also, do you want to hide your purse in my cabinet? I have thieves.
She tells me the things I have changed for this specific class are things she would have done and she's sure it will go fine. Some students come in.
K: Who's that?
Me: That's someone the district sent to help me. She's just going to watch us today.
K and J get into an argument over who is more fat. At least, I think that's the argument, because otherwise "who likes McD burgers more" doesn't make sense.
Me: K, J, everyone likes McDs burgers. McD is great. They're where it's at. Except for breakfast.
More students trickle in. I give G a workbook and an extra set of pages, enlarged as big as I could get them, because G is visually-challenged. But she's also a child and wants to fit in, so she wants to have the workbook too.
I have an easel set up with gigantic pages of our workbook, (I make them when I make G's copies) with the answers written into each question but covered by a piece of paper. We uncover as we go. The students start getting rowdy, and I get a few who try and uncover the answers because they're the kind of people who will skip to the end of the book, apparently.
I'm trying to define the word "potential" using the Avengers, but a small bit of chaos breaks out. Just a dot. Why? G's magnifying bar has gone missing. We're about twenty minutes into class now, and the class has started to screech. Not to a halt, yet, but we all know it's coming.
G's Direct Aide (students who are especially disabled get a person who follows them around just to help them. G primarily got one so she could navigate the hallways) is accusing N of stealing it. G and N are kept in all the same classes because N has down syndrome. While N functions fairly well, there's an implicit understanding that G's DA is supposed to be able to help N if needed, also. So basically, G and N are metaphorically sisters, and while they love each-other, they also resent being forced to spend time together.
So now I'm handling this, I guess. I've eliminated N as a suspect. The consultant gestures to K and whispers to me that she thinks she saw him take it. While I am looking at the consultant, the magnifying bar is found under K's desk. By K. K and I have a short discussion about how I'm not certain he did it, I want him to understand that if he did, that was a mean thing to do, and thanked him for finding the magnifying bar.
So we're 40 minutes in now. The class has derailed entirely and something has gone missing. My predictions are fairly accurate. But I didn't predict the thing. I'm sure you, astute reader, did, because of the title.
One of the boys decided to take off his pants. The child insisted he had shorts under his pants, but we had a talk about how it's not socially appropriate and it makes other people feel uncomfortable. Layers are smart but he needs to go to the bathroom to take off the pants.
The class is now over. Egos are bruised, pants have been shed, magnifying bars have been restored to their rightful owners. In that tiny reprieve after the students leave, but the next period's students haven't arrived yet, I turn to the Consultant. "Well, do you have any thoughts?"
"I'll get back to you," she said, eyes wide, with a slight laugh.
She never did.
So that's my most recent crazy story, but I still have "he stung himself with a dead bee" "the 'not a drill' lockdown drill" "that time multiple teachers, independently of one-another, decided to slut shame a middle school girl and imply she'll get murdered" and other modern classics.
We'll see how this goes.
My classes alternate. On one day I have set 1, on the other day I have set 2. The consultant came to see me on Set 2, 4th period. (S2 4.) She raved about it. I connected the material to their lives, we had meaningful conversations, the group rotations ran smoothly. A+++ and a sticker with a smiley face on it.
It turns out she was coming back again. She wanted to see S2 4 again, but was scheduled on an S1 day. So she's coming in to see S1 4.
If S2 4 runs like a well-oiled machine, S1 4 runs like someone dumped acid and a few random pieces of bone into the machine. It runs a specific, predictable way, but never well.
We talk before the class starts, while the students are at lunch. I lay out how the class goes:
Me: Alright. We'll have a few students who are late. The class will get rowdier once they come in. This class will start to fall apart 20 minutes in. By 40 minutes in all will be lost. Also, do you want to hide your purse in my cabinet? I have thieves.
She tells me the things I have changed for this specific class are things she would have done and she's sure it will go fine. Some students come in.
K: Who's that?
Me: That's someone the district sent to help me. She's just going to watch us today.
K and J get into an argument over who is more fat. At least, I think that's the argument, because otherwise "who likes McD burgers more" doesn't make sense.
Me: K, J, everyone likes McDs burgers. McD is great. They're where it's at. Except for breakfast.
More students trickle in. I give G a workbook and an extra set of pages, enlarged as big as I could get them, because G is visually-challenged. But she's also a child and wants to fit in, so she wants to have the workbook too.
I have an easel set up with gigantic pages of our workbook, (I make them when I make G's copies) with the answers written into each question but covered by a piece of paper. We uncover as we go. The students start getting rowdy, and I get a few who try and uncover the answers because they're the kind of people who will skip to the end of the book, apparently.
I'm trying to define the word "potential" using the Avengers, but a small bit of chaos breaks out. Just a dot. Why? G's magnifying bar has gone missing. We're about twenty minutes into class now, and the class has started to screech. Not to a halt, yet, but we all know it's coming.
G's Direct Aide (students who are especially disabled get a person who follows them around just to help them. G primarily got one so she could navigate the hallways) is accusing N of stealing it. G and N are kept in all the same classes because N has down syndrome. While N functions fairly well, there's an implicit understanding that G's DA is supposed to be able to help N if needed, also. So basically, G and N are metaphorically sisters, and while they love each-other, they also resent being forced to spend time together.
So now I'm handling this, I guess. I've eliminated N as a suspect. The consultant gestures to K and whispers to me that she thinks she saw him take it. While I am looking at the consultant, the magnifying bar is found under K's desk. By K. K and I have a short discussion about how I'm not certain he did it, I want him to understand that if he did, that was a mean thing to do, and thanked him for finding the magnifying bar.
So we're 40 minutes in now. The class has derailed entirely and something has gone missing. My predictions are fairly accurate. But I didn't predict the thing. I'm sure you, astute reader, did, because of the title.
One of the boys decided to take off his pants. The child insisted he had shorts under his pants, but we had a talk about how it's not socially appropriate and it makes other people feel uncomfortable. Layers are smart but he needs to go to the bathroom to take off the pants.
The class is now over. Egos are bruised, pants have been shed, magnifying bars have been restored to their rightful owners. In that tiny reprieve after the students leave, but the next period's students haven't arrived yet, I turn to the Consultant. "Well, do you have any thoughts?"
"I'll get back to you," she said, eyes wide, with a slight laugh.
She never did.
So that's my most recent crazy story, but I still have "he stung himself with a dead bee" "the 'not a drill' lockdown drill" "that time multiple teachers, independently of one-another, decided to slut shame a middle school girl and imply she'll get murdered" and other modern classics.
We'll see how this goes.
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