Gimme a break, Gimme a break, break me off a piece of that ...

This last week, including the weekend, was less than stellar. I took my first sick day on Friday since I had not been feeling well and needed a refill of my allergy medication. The doctor was very helpful, and gave me a couple prescriptions, so I was finally able to use my new medical plan that certifies me as an adult. Unfortunately, the sub again had problems with the class, and I really am starting to believe that I should only give worksheets when a sub is needed. It wasn't even that tough of a class... The students were supposed to take a quiz, then work on their revisions of their drafts. Apparently, many of the kids complained that they did not have their rough drafts even though I specifically told them that they would be given in class work time and needed to bring them. Maybe it's a testament to my teaching that I don't have these mishaps, or maybe I do and I just downplay them. Eh.

To be honest, I was glad I got a sick day. I really needed a break, if only to recharge. That might be the stress talking, that might be the sinus infection (or the E-coli that I could apparently have from contaminated burgers I bought at Sam's CNN Article here). Two of my kids got in a fight in class on Thursday. It was my smallest class too, and I even have an aide, but neither of us saw it. It happened in the last 5 minutes of class. The two boys were horsing around, just pushing each other a little bit, and one pushed the other one in the face and cut the kid's lip. The victim promptly punched the offender in the eye. They were both REAL quiet about it too, as the punched kid quickly put down his head and covered his face with a hood. I honestly don't know how only ONE other student saw this. I constantly move about the room, so the whole altercation must have taken at most 30 seconds. But nonetheless, it happened right under my nose. After telling the class what they needed to do before they could leave, I looked back to the kid with his head on the desk and his hood pulled up. I tapped him on the head and asked him if he heard what I said and if he was going to take his work home for homework (he had done next to nothing in class). He muttered something, so I said again, "You didn't do much in class today. Are you going to take your work home?" He looked up as tears streamed from his eyes and I quickly sat down to see what was wrong. The bell rang and the rest of class left, as he finally managed to say that the other student had punched him. Sure enough, he pulled back his hood and he was going to have a pretty nice shiner. I immediately told him we'd go to the nurses office and get ice, and that I would be writing up the other student (both of them ended up getting written up since they were egging each other on). I found the other student in the hall near the office after dropping off the punched student with the nurses, and told the quick-fisted child to come with me. He instantly knew what was happening, and had the gall to say, "You're bringing him in too, right?" Didn't really care about his own situation, just wanted to see the other kid also punished. Yeah, ok, you have a cut lip now. Why the heck did you punch him in the eye in response? Needless to say, I was frustrated, and it put a damper on my already dismal day, which was peppered with sneezes, reports of bad student grades, and many schedule changes for athletes.

We got our six weeks grades back on Thursday as well. My students performed almost on all categories below the average of any of the other English classes. Aware that I'm a new teacher and realizing I probably have not put in the amount of effort I should, I was worried. I ended up talking to my department head/mentor for an hour or two after school about the scores. Maybe it's not that bad. They were only off a couple of percentage points (averaged) on one 20 question test, and many of the other teachers have more than one Pre-AP class. I also have the greatest number of "mod students" (special needs that usually are lower performing. I say usually because some are VERY bright in certain areas). I felt better after the meeting, but I'm still not really happy.

I don't know what my main problem is. I'm happy when I'm teaching, and it's great to be with the kids. I just get extremely frustrated when they just decide that they want to not do ANYTHING at all. When they don't really care about their lives at all. I dunno. Maybe I can relate to them, because that's how I felt this whole weekend. I didn't want to do anything and school/work was the last thing on my mind.

I'm pretty sure that I don't want to teach after my two years are up. I really despise getting up before the sun, I feel like my creativity is really confined (thank goodness I got to design the school website), and I don't really see a long future of teaching in my life. This isn't really news, per say, since I joined TFA with the intention of getting two years of an experience out of it and then going on with my life. I'd help out for two years, say I did my part, and see if it changes anything about my life. I can already tell that it's going to keep me organized differently, appreciating solid teaching skills, and able to explain myself in as few words as possible. Time will tell. As for now, I've got a splitting headache and I don't plan on taking tomorrow off since I have nothing ready for a sub, so I'm going to bed.