I received a call for a morning at a school known to be troublesome. I figured, it's just a morning and it's grade 2. How hard can that be? And then I got a call for an afternoon close to home in kindie. I was feeling sick but thought I could manage this.
Got to the morning school, everything seemed pretty decent though the secretary was not very welcoming. The kids all seemed pretty good considering it was the day after Hallowe'en. At first snack I walked around making sure everything was peanut and nut free. It was! I tried to encourage kids to eat their healthy snacks first because things like sliced fruit don't last as well in the lunch bag as a bag of Cheetos.
One girl was eating chips but there was a banana in her bag. I encouraged her to eat the banana while it still looked perfect. She took the banana, held it behind her back, and said
"I'm gonna stick the banana up my ass"
Yes. That's what she said. In a funny singsong voice.
I said "That's not an appropriate word for school".
She said "At my house, we use alllll the swear words".
It wasn't a bad day, but I definitely won't do junior or intermediate there unless I'm really hard up for the money.
I headed over in the pouring rain to the afternoon kindie job.
Oh, it's not kindie, it's grade 1/2. The teacher never updated the website they use for booking absences.
I got to the class and the kids are there for indoor recess. It seemed crazy. The teacher's desk was crazy. I found the plans. Not too bad, I'd get prep and there was an assembly planned. That seemed do-able. There was also a little note at the top of the page
"Keep an eye on Johnny, Amanda and Bob" and penciled below "and Mike".
What does that mean? I couldn't find any notes about them in the supply teacher handbook. I knew immediately who Amanda was because her classmates were constantly saying "Stop Amanda" and "You're being bossy Amanda".
Things did not start off smooth and went downhill. It's really hard to get the kids focused after indoor lunch. These guys had the attention spans of goldfish. Unsynchronized goldfish. Even trying to read a Robert Munsch book was a challenge. The teacher came to get them for my prep period and I put my head down on the desk.
I soon found out who Johnny, Bob and Mike were too. At first, Johnny was just being reserved and not engaged. We went for the assembly and Amanda kept an EA busy and then something started up with Johnny, Bob and Mike.
Back in the class they were crazy. The EA stayed for a bit, and then kept coming in trying to help. I think she finally took Amanda out for a bit. At one point, they were working on a cut and paste activity and Johnny started throwing things. Things like scissors.
I should have called for support. Perhaps even put in a violent incidence form. Four kids out of 17 monopolized my time and created mayhem for the entire class. At the end, I couldn't even get them to just clean up their desks and sit quietly to wait for dismissal. I got out of there as soon as I could. The EA stopped me and said I basically did the best I could, she knows it's a "hard" class.
Megan has a couple friends that go to that school. I really wanted to like it because it's close to home. One of the girls mom says the school is really not the greatest. I was surprised. I know all schools have some bad apples, but man. That was lousy.
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