day 4, sped teacher.

I have a new teacher in my room. So now there's three of us: me, my para, and a SPED teacher. There are 26 children in our class. There are 20 some odd kids on either side of our "pod." Did I mention this? The pod? There are no walls. There are dividers. There are three classrooms in a pod. Mine is in the middle. Loud? Are you kidding? Of course it is.

But back to the new teacher. I knew she was coming; my principal had me meet her before she hired her. Fine, whatever, she seems nice, I said. And she is. But I also said "Three adults in one classroom is too much." Yes, she replied, and then something to the affect that five or six SPED kids in one classroom is also too much. Good point.

However, as far as I can tell, I only have two SPED kids. One who was in my class last year and was pulled out for two hours a day for services, and a new one who started yesterday, a CLEARLY SPED child in second grade who doesn't speak a lick of English. Which is funny, because the new sped teacher doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. Should be interesting.

It should be interesting also in that it seems that my new SPED teacher wants to claim some ownership over my class. It's her first day and already she was jumping in with both feet.

ummmmm... ummmm...

I wanted to say something.

Something like "what do you think you are doing? this is MY class."

Which is when it occurred to me that I might have a little control issue.
I'm sure to be working on this as the arrangement evolves.

In the meantime, E spent the day with the new Asst. principal. He was shouting all morning "I AM EVIL! I AM EVIL!" Creating havoc, shoving shelves around and hiding behind them. Lovely. I thought about the "buddy classroom" method (which is basically dumping him in another room to cool off... works for some, but for him? Not so much...), but really wanted to nip this in the bud. Last year he walked on shelves, barked like a dog, threw pencils around the room, kicked desks over... and also came in with checks stained so raspberry red that on closer inspection were actually bruises. "What happened to your face?" I asked. "I was bad." Then he smacked his own face, left and right, left and right, pulled up his sleeve, and showed me the bruise from the belt his mother hit him with. After that I gave him room. Too much, I fear. Which brings me to the "nip it in the bud" idea.

And a deep sigh....... What's a teacher to do? Ironically, he is the child I love the most, if the most is possible. I love them all. But E? I see the kid, right through. I see right into him. And I want so badly to show him what I see.

Ug.

Oh yeah... back to the new teacher... The first thing she said was "Wow, they love you!" ... yeah, thanks, I guess they do... And later, "Wow, I'm so impressed - you really are good!" ... wow, thanks, yeah, I guess...

How did I almost forget such a compliment?

I am good at this. And some days, some moments that stretch into hours sometimes, I love it. I love it, love it, love it. But the exhaustion.. the speedy adrenaline by the end of the day.. the fast forward feeling okay gotta do this and that and fill out this incident report and write that message down and call that mother and plan this lesson and remember that appointment and and and "GET OFF THAT SHELF." and "we do NOT speak when we are walking in these halls." and "I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened." and "I'm sorry your mother's a crackhead, but could you just learn this multiplication please?" ... okay, so I don't actually say that last one, and hardly even think it ... :)
but seriously.

Tomorrow I'm telling the first great story of creation. I just showed my husband the volcano; baking soda, vinegar, red food coloring, etc. Can't wait, it's gonna be cool.

I'll let you know how it goes.