Here I am. That was quite a cliffhanger, eh?

I will attempt, using my scattered memory and scrawled notes, to recount the events of the last couple weeks of Student Teaching.

The wait is over.

Let's start with the dreaded SOLO WEEK.

Monday [December 1st] was: Day 1

...and, at the end of the day, when the last kid left the room, I really wished that I didn't have to come back on Tuesday. Talk about exhaustion. Whew, zero energy left and only one day was down. It didn't help that I'd been hacking up phlegm balls all weekend so that my throat was raw, and so I stepped into the room in the morning with very little energy.

The day started out a little crazy, but, by the time everyone was seated and reading from the books that they had just chosen from the Reading Center for the week, it was calm and quiet. Ahh.

HOWEVER, that didn't last very long, as there were kids in that class that started testing me right off the bat, and it was really getting on my nerves. I told Miles that I felt like I was barking at kids all afternoon. I didn't want to do that everyday, and I felt like I shouldn't have to tell the same kids over and over to sit down and shut up. It was like I was starting to reprimand certain kids like I reprimand our cats [or is it the other way around? I can't be sure...] [Macon, get off the table. Macon, get off the table. Macon. I TOLD you to get off the table. You KNOW you're not supposed to be on the table.].

One of the most important things that needs to happen everyday at school [especially because Bryant doesn't have a formal P.E. program] is RECESS. For a student's sanity, and, most importantly, a TEACHER'S sanity, those kids need to be able to run around for a good half-an-hour. Of course, Monday it had to rain. STUPID RAIN. The kids were forced to stay inside all day, and this just jacked them up even more. And, consequently, it dragged me down even more.

Speaking of water, for some reason, I thought that it would be a good idea to introduce a "Sink or Float" Science center choice for afternoon center time. Naturally, the loudest and most spastic girl in class chose that center. Water was EVERYWHERE. She wasn't doing "Sink or Float", she was doing "Throw Stuff in a Bucket of Water and Splash the Water Around". Not quite what I had in mind.

Oh, and every week, on Mondays, Miles has the kids pick out a book from a designated box of books. These are take-home books that the kids get for the week, in the hopes that someone at home will read it with them. Well, naturally, I just ran out of time on Monday, and the kids didn't get their take-home books that day.

Tuesday [December 2nd] was: Day 2

Before school started, I was told that there would be a substitute in the room for the afternoon. Miles had a mandatory meeting on school grounds that took up the whole afternoon, so the school was obligated to get a sub even though I was there. Even though I felt unsure, it was important to me that I be alone in the classroom that week - I just knew that if there were too many other adults, I would get self-conscious and probably use the other teachers as a crutch instead of handling everything myself. Already, I had told a couple of the resource people who come into the classroom a few times a week that their services wouldn't be needed that week [I mean, I was nice and said, "Hey, would it be OK if I got to experience the class all by myself this week?"]. And, I always had the para-professional that worked with the girl in the wheelchair in the room all day - couldn't ask her not to come everyday. Actually, I was SO lucky to have her in there all week - she was a lifesaver on more than one occasion. At the end of each day, I felt SO BAD for her though, I just KNOW that she must of been praying that the week would go by faster, and that she was taking 4 or 5 aspirin when she got home every night - cursing my name with each gulp of water. So, anyway, the sub was there for the last half of the day. Thankfully, she pretty much just stayed out of sight.

As I mentioned, in addition to not having a formal music or art program, Bryant doesn't have a formal P.E. program. "Well," I thought, "it's my solo week, and I can pretty much do whatever I want. And, I SHOULD pretty much do whatever I want - including, trying out some random things." I had asked Miles the week before about P.E., and he said that there was a "guide" of sorts that the teachers could use if they found the time to teach P.E. on their own. I looked through the guide, and saw that a lot of the latter lessons counted on the teacher having done a lot of the earlier lessons - pushing teamwork, coordination builiding, etc. - so, I thought that I would start from the beginning. Luckily, the first couple of lessons in the P.E. book were just the kind of thing that I was hoping to do - BEANBAGS.

SO, right after afternoon recess [instead of doing Science...], I walked the kids through the room and then right back outside to another part of the playground - grabbing the basket of beanbags and some hula hoops along the way. The first thing that I had the kids do was stand in a circle, and then I passed a single beanbag to the person on my right who then passed it to the person on their right, etc. until it made its way back to me. [TEAMWORK!] The kids didn't seem all that thrilled yet. Next, I passed a beanbag to the person on my right, and when it got a quarter of the way around the circle I passed another beanbag to the person on my right. And, when THAT one got a quarter of the way around the circle, I passed another beanbag to the person on my right. Pretty soon, I was passing bags as fast as I could and THE KIDS WERE LOVING IT. Laughter filled the schoolyard. It was a joyous moment. After giving a thoroughly detailed speech about what one SHOULDN'T do when they get their own beanbag [an essential thing to do when teaching...], I passed out a bag to each kid. Naturally, there were many shouts of "Can I have a [name a color] one?" I was so proud of myself when I just kept on walking around the circle. Although I wouldn't let anyone else dictate the color they got, I, of course, gave the girl with autism an orange beanbag [well, I wanted her to participate...]. I had the kids put the beanbags on their heads, and then try to bend down without having the bag fall. This was repeated in various forms [on the back of your hand, on your shoulder, on your forehead, on top of your foot, etc.], and, again, the kids REALLY got a kick out of it. The girl with autism seemed to get the most joy out of it - she was giggling harder than I had ever seen her giggle. Joyous moment.

We moved from the circle to having the kids toss their beanbags into hula hoops that were laying on the ground. Of course, even though I went to the trouble of explaining what we DON'T do with the beanbags, there was one kid who didn't seem to understand how serious I was about these rules. He was tossing his beanbag up to see if the clouds would catch it, so he ended up sitting to the side for awhile. Watching everyone else have fun, while he was sidelined, was the ULTIMATE punishment for him. About 10 minutes later the sub said, "Don't you think he's had enough?" I looked over to the benches - yeah, I'd forgotten ALL about him - and he was on the verge of absolute tears. I invited him back to join in the fun, and he reluctantly rejoined the group.

The throwing into hula hoops was getting a bit out of hand on the whole, and we still had a good 10 minutes on the clock, so I decided to bring the group back to a circle and "wind down" with some more of the beanbag passing excercise. Do you understand what I just said? Here it is again, with some words italicized: So I decided to bring the group back to a circle and "wind down" with some more of the beanbag passing excercise. What was I thinking? Sure enough, an afternoon activity that started out to be a great deal of fun quickly degenerated into hellish chaos. I started passing the beanbags around the circle and the kids went NUTS. Some were hoarding and then hurling the backlog at their neighbor, while others were just HURLING beanbags. A couple of kids ran up to me to grab bags from the basket - naturally, I screamed out, "I didn't tell ANYONE to come get beanbags!" As one girl was bringing her head back up from bending down to the basket, another girl [that was hovering above the basket] lowered her head and SLAM. CRYING! SCREAMING! And, the one kid that had been the most defiant that week was MOCKING and LAUGHING AT the girl who suffered the worst from the collision. I'd had it. "[Boy's name][let's call him "M"], GO SIT DOWN! I'M SICK OF YOUR [here, I came SO close to saying "shit"... dangerously close] STUFF!" That was it. Even though we had a couple more minutes of designated P.E. time, we were going inside. Fun was over.

During Math time, the girl in class that Miles and I think is "haunted" was sitting behind a table - a place where she knows not to sit. I said to her, "Hey, come out from behind the table. I'm afraid that you won't be able to see the calendar from there." She gave me a blank stare. "Why don't you come sit over here where you'll be able to see better?" Blank stare. "Ok, I've asked you nicely twice to move. Now, I'm telling you to come sit over here." Blank stare. "[Name of girl], MOVE OVER HERE!" Blank stare. And, I just moved on. Probably the wrong thing to do, but she clearly wasn't about to move, and I wasn't about to pick her up and move her.

Funniest Quote of the Day: Outside at afternoon recess, the brash and loud girl in class came up to me and said, "I have a headache". I told her that she could go back to the room and get a drink of water and lay down on the couch in the Reading Center, or just take it easy and sit down outside for awhile. She said she'd be OK, and, as she walked away, muttered, "I must be getting my period..." [You can't make this stuff up, folks.]

Oh, and we ran out of time again, so the kids didn't get their take-home books on Tuesday either. I'm horrible, eh?

And that's only the first two days...