Reality Sets In

What was that song by The Rascals? I loved it..."How Can I be sure, In a world, that's constantly changing..."

My song is "Where Did It Go Wrong..." Sung to the same tune, I think. But not as sweet.

Where do I begin? Not sure. The year started out great with us finding out that our students last year scored the highest on the state science test in our district-and that is out of like 23 elementaries (we are the fourth largest district in our state). So I was pumped for the year! Great science scores last year! My teammate and I were an awesome team! And we had 31 and 32 kids on our class roster....Oh, no.

So a split classroom had to be created. Out of the teachers being affected, only I had taught both 4th and 5th grade. I asked Mr. Principal, who do you want to teach it? His reply was me-(or you...you know what I mean...). So I said sure, I'll teach it.

Then the nightmare began. We had meetings and meetings to make this happen. I had to give up 19 fifth graders. It wasn't hard to give some of them up. I kept 12 fifth graders. And to my credit, I didn't keep the smartest ones. Just nice ones. Some very smart, some not so. My 19 kids who left were sad to go (I think). My 12 remaining fifth graders sort of moved up into the first few rows in my room.

And my 12 fourth graders came in. Wildly. Loudly. There seemed to be mostly small, loud boys...Oh, no, I thought. And of course the only spots were further towards the back or in the last row. This was a Wednesday at the end of the day. I vowed to moved kids after school, but many things came up to prevent me from doing this.

The next day we were still in the same seats with most of the 4th graders towards the back. And they seemed to not have any manners at all. There was one very loud girl. And it seemed that were about 5 loud boys. Half of the fourth graders who came in seemed loud and obnoxious without any manners. I threatened to move desks, but after school, again, it didn't happen. I felt like I was drowning.

Finally, on Monday before school, I moved kids around. I intermixed the fourth graders with the fifth graders. I kept brighter kids towards the back, but also moved a kid up front regardless of brightness. One boy who had been driving me crazy the past three days, and actually seemed pretty bright, was moved into the first row. I began a new week.

What a difference. The boy I moved up front? He bacame teacher's pet (he's my boy that can't say his r's...). The loud girl? I got right on her right away. Now, she tows the line for the most part, and is probably one of my smartest KIDS in the class, not just the smartest 4th grader. It's been a month of hard work, but the fourth graders have shaped up, and my fifth graders are still nice, and the class is feeling like one community.

And now I'm too tired to write about the things that are not going well in my teaching life. I'll write about that later. For now, let's just say that last year, Mr. Principal's first year of being a principal and his first year at our school, was exhausting. This year? It's just plain frustrating...Look for lots of venting this year, and by the year's end, my adventure as I try to get a job elsewhere. I'm hoping it might be an easy thing to do, given my science success, and hopefully I passed my Take One! course I did last year. Those will look good. Hopefully good enough to overcome any bad reference from Mr. Principal, because I have no other choice. Whew...