Apocalypse Now

Well, my headache has finally gone away!  Today was definitely an adventure.  My lovely morning started off with my phone awakening me at 5:30 from a bizarre dream about subbing (more on that in a minute).  The machine recited a job offer to me of a first/second grade blend I've been to a few times already this year.  I took it, and then laid in bed for a while trying to separate the reality of being awake at 5:30 to the fantasy of my dream, which, in part, involved me wandering around a teacher-filled, completely dark labyrinth of a school in my pajamas, trying in vain to escape from people in order to put my clothes on.

So back to reality - I headed off to school a few hours later.  I've been in this class 3 or 4 times already this year, so the kids remembered me, and I remembered some of them.  The day started off interestingly when we got to their reading stations time and realized the chart that showed what stations they were supposed to go to had not been rotated.  I thought I remembered how to do it, so I moved them quickly.  But soon after half of the kids were complaining that they'd done those ones before.  I tried again but with no more success.  We wasted about ten minutes doing this before I finally just randomly sent them places and told them to do it again.

We had more problems right after lunch.  The kids were great during lunch time - they eat in the room.  But when I took them to dump their trays one kid fell on the stairs (not sure if he wasn't looking, or what) and spilled the salad and ranch he didn't eat all over the floor.  Then a bunch of  boys were running in the cafeteria and throwing food into the garbage cans and missing, and it was just a mess.  I suppose you could say I yelled at them when I finally got them all in line.  Told them that just because there is a janitor to clean up messes at the school doesn't mean that you should be making messes on purpose.  Then I walked them up to use the bathrooms before music and the boys again were goofing around in the bathroom.  I was so irritated with them by this point!  Thankfully I got rid of them for an hour when I took them to music and PE.

When I retrieved them from PE the counselor took about 5 of the boys for a weekly session.  It was SOOO much calmer when we got back to the room without them!  However, one boy was mad that he DIDN'T get to go with them.  So he pitched a fit and wouldn't do anything and basically walked out of the room.  Thankfully, we had an adult helper in the room at that point and she followed him out.  He ended up at the office for the rest of the day.  My boys came back from the counselor for the last half hour, and the SECOND they walked in the door the noise level tripled and behavior started to deteriorate all around the room.  It was like bad-behavior cancer - it just spread everywhere!  I quickly ended writing time and had them put things away.  That took FIVE minutes and they didn't even half to leave their seats!  It was so annoying!  All they had to do was put their papers in their folders, put the pencils in the pencil cup, and stack the folders at the end of the table.  But my 5 little horsemen of the apocalypse (yes, my apocalypse has five) were just plain not listening and each one getting their tables distracted and talking.  I managed to reel them in though and get everyone to get their coats and backpacks and start cleaning up the room relatively calmly.  

As the bell rang and I said a cheerful and relieved goodbye to the class at the door, I looked up to see my little tantrum-thrower returning from the office and literally taking a flying LEAP down the hallway.  Seriously, he was running a full speed and throwing his body into the air.  He then slammed into the wall/floor on his way down and started to groan.  Another teacher and I both yelled out his name at the same time, and the other teacher said she thought he needed to go back to the office to wait to get picked up.  So while I was ready to just shove him out the door and be done with him, I had to follow through with this now.  I've also still got a girl in the room waiting for her big sister to come get her.  Tantrum goes back to the closet area (which is a row of hooks behind a partial wall.  He sits on the floor and pouts.  I went back to deal with him.  Took his backpack off the hook and said, "Ok, let's go."  He informed me that he was, in fact, "NOT going anywhere!!!".  I said, "Well, you're certainly not staying here all day, and you aren't going home with me, so get up."  He then stood up, reached for his backpack and tried to yank it out of my hand.  I held on and said, in what I like to think of as my low and scary voice, "Excuse me.  We do not YANK things out of peoples' hands.  If you would like to have your backpack you need to ask me for it, but trying to rip it out of my hand is unacceptable.  If you would like it, you may say, 'Miss Barnes, may I please have my backpack?'"  He then let go and wouldn't look at me.  So I waited a minute and gave it to him and told him to start walking.  Right about then the principal and counselor arrived and lead him out to find whoever it was that was picking him up.  I could barely keep myself from and exasperated eye-roll at the sweet little girl that was still hanging around waiting for her sister.  She had the greatest look on her face though - a sort of, "what is wrong with these people?!" kind of expression.  My thoughts exactly!  If only they were all that sweet.  To all those people that think teachers are paid to much - I'd like to see you live through that day after day.  You'd change your tune pretty quickly I imagine.