Today started just like any other day: I had arranged for silent reading, which my class of ~16 sophomores has been doing every Wednesday and Friday for the past month. So, when I arrived at school at 6:45, I hurriedly put our "Silent Reading" Expectations on the board, so students would know to grab their books as they entered the room at 8:15 (Wednesdays are late-start days at my school), I ran to the copy machine (then to a different copy machine because the closer one was out of toner), and I miraculously made it to my department's PLC meeting by 7:10.
The meeting was just like many other PLC meetings, unorganized. We each signed on to a student computer, pulled up data sheets for our individual students (which we'd spent a morning of PD compiling before school started), and reviewed the data. It took about 10 minutes to revise my data sheet: I have 2 new students and 2 students who have switched from one hour to another, and then I had 50 minutes to kill. I surreptitiously checked my personal email and favorite news sites, opened my school email, and eventually brought up the issue of some "problem students" across the room since there was no open dialog among my department members. It sounded something like this:
"Hey Mel, at this point in the year, how many of my students should still be struggling to get to school on time due to late buses?"
"Umm, that's not true to my knowledge."
(To self, "True? What's not true?")
"Who's the student?"
"M.S. She has a late bus stamp most days of the week, and she doesn't come to class until 5-10 minutes into class many days."
"I'll be in touch with her administrator."
Around 8:05, the PLC meeting closed, and I rush to my room to open the doors and make sure my expectations are still clearly mounted on the SmartBoard. (Yep, they're still there). I stand outside my door to greet each special student as he/she walks into my class, often reminding them to "Please get your silent reading book and be seated!" and then I wait as the last few students run through my door as the bell rings.
Upon entering my classroom, I ask the two boys who are mock-wrestling in the middle of the room to be seated (but I don't call them by their names because one of them has "behavioral disturbances" and doesn't like to be singled out, even when he's the only student off task), so it sounds like this, "Could the whole close (13 of whom are already in their chairs with their books) be seated, please?" After another couple of reminders and some calling-out of the sensitive student, I finally have all students seated, 4 off to the library to renew books, attendance taken, and said-sensitive student passively laying his head on his desk and waiting for my attention. Today I don't have the time or energy to deal with it. We've already had 2 hallways conversations this week about his decision to not participate in class, so for the remainder of 1st hour, he sullenly sits at his desk and fumes.
Second and third hour fly by; it is Wednesday, afterall, so classes are each 10 minutes shorter, and, before I know it, it's time for ACEtime - a designated time for students to meet once a week with a specific teacher, a time in which students are supposed to relax, feel at ease, ask their designated teacher questions about education beyond their current academic year, and review grades with their teacher. My ACEtime has 20 students, which is about as many desks are as in my room, and many of them are not college-bound (a decision not based on their preference, but on the fact that they are not legally documented citizens of our great nation). I quickly garner their attention by asking that they kindly stop talking, kindly ask again, then bark like a bulldog until they are all silent long enough for me to notify them that they will be taking a standardized test in 2-weeks' time; they need to be in my room no later than 8:20; and this test is important in predicting their future options. A few students wonder, "What will happen if we don't take the test," but no one listens long enough to hear my dejected response that "missing the test will not lead to any penalty other than not receiving important information about your future." One student who actually hears my scoffs and dismissively mimics, "FUTURE, HA!"
Before I know it, ACEtime is over, and it's time for me to puff up my chest and face 4th hour - my largest class with the most concentrated amount of learning and behaviorally disturbed students. I've recently reviewed my roster and come to the realization that ~4 of 20 students take up about 85% of my energy for this precious 45 minutes, but I don't know how to ignore their disruptive, inappropriate behaviors, so I breath deeply and wait for the next confrontation. (I don't have to wait long.)
Before the bell has rung, I've already reminded student A - a student similarly sensitive to aforementioned student from 1st hour - to be seated and have reading book ready. By the grace of god, he has found his chair, and, though I'm still having to beg the class to listen to my instructions, all the students in my room are seated (for once!), and in strolls trouble student #2 - puffy-eyed and late. As soon as I mention that she needs to sign in, her compadres undermine my authority by asking why I'm being so mean. (Mean? I didn't even ask why she was late?) I begin signing student-library passes, give student #2 permission to cry in the hallway with a friend, and, when I look up again, student A is missing. I quickly surmise he is in the hallway (without permission) with student #2 and go to the hall to retrieve him.
As I know student A is sensitive, in my calmest voice, I tell him, "(student) you don't have permission to be in the hallway," to which he immediately responds, "GOD! I hate it when you raise your voice at me! Quit yelling at me!" I wait for him to walk past me and intentionally avoid eye contact, which is the norm for poor ADHD-ridden student A, and then I defend myself by saying, "I'm not yelling at you. Am I yelling at you?" Student A insists I am, but consents to return to the class without much prodding.
The 16 on-task students who are reading as they are supposed to be receive little-to-no attention from me today because, after a few minutes of uninterrupted reading, student #2's friend calls me out to the hallway so student #2 can tell me she has to see the nurse. I try to ask if anything is wrong (I've had premonitions of relationship abuse in the past, and she's just recently asked about the regularity of her menstrual cycle), but she insists she'll be OK.
After no time, the bell dismisses 4th hour for lunch, but I'm still an hour away from having a break. A student has asked to come to my room at lunch to work on "something." Assuming he needs help with an English assignment (I'm a reading and writing intervention teacher, after all), I agree, so I wait for him to show.
When he arrives, he has court orders and documents from his probation officer which require him to write a letter of apology for a crime he committed in April to his parents and the person he committed the crime against. As any regular teenager would be, he is embarrassed about his transgression, and, therefore, does not want to tell me the nature of the crime so I can help him write, but, on the other hand, he is a struggling writer and needs an outline of how to organize the letter, so I open a word document on the smart board and write a "mock" letter which includes all the elements his probation officer has requested, leaving blanks in the spaces he needs to fill in (ie - the nature of the crime, the punishment he incurred, the people he affected and to what extent, why/how he will refrain from doing this in the future, and what he learned). While composing this letter, my angel-of-a-child who is on free-and-reduced lunch missed his entire lunch period.
Though 5th hour is my only plan period and is usually the most venerated time of my day, I recognized that this student's legal document (which, of course, was due the very next day) took precedent over both my personal time and his 5th hour Science class, so I allowed emailed his 5th hour teacher, allowed him to stay and finish, wrote him a pass, gave him part of my lunch along with a granola bar (which I always keep on hand for my undernourished students), and sent him on his way to find a proper lunch, since he revealed that he did not eat breakfast either.
I, then, ran to my assistant principal's office to schedule my 'formal' observation for next week. (Strangely, while in the office, I ran into the student who had just left my room with another principal. Ay carumba ! I can't imagine what he's done now, so I tell myself he just came to this AP to get help finding lunch). I return to my room, begin the process of filling out the "pre-observation" document my AP has given me, and await my 6th hour class, feeling simultaneously defeated and undefeatable.
6th hour goes as smoothly as it ever does; as the bell rings, I see problem student #3 walking the opposite direction of my class at the end of my hallway with his girlfriend (problem student #2 from 4th hour, mind you). I holler to him once, but don't see him again. He emerges into my classroom mid-explanation, walks in front of me, and tags my tardy board with his name. He then proceeds to make loud noises, "shuffle" distract his peers, and not do any work for the remainder of the period, all the while loudly listening to music, red-eyed, and unfocused. Hmmm. No (coherent) response when questioned about his red eyes, but he did manage to tag my board with the following phrases: "TJG" (Taylor Gang or Die), and "(I don't remember the name of his shuffling group)". After much prompting, most students, except student #3, completed some semblance of the assignment for the day, and class ended.
I take a deep breath and brace myself as I stand by the door greeting my last students of the day. Today I actually realized that 7th hour is my calmest class, and it's especially calm if any 1 of three students are missing. No luck with specific-student absences today. Before the bell rings, there have been 2 requests to go to the library and my proctor (ie- teacher aide) has asked "Is there anything you need me to do today?" (duh!), so I explain her duty of the day. Immediately after the bell rings, there are 2 requests to see the nurse. I deal with the library-goers and sort out which student can go to the nurse first (as the two male students can't be trusted to roam the hallway together), take attendance, and then take a seat on the back counter with my book of the week (Rebecca). Of all my classes, 7th hour is the only class who has ever requested to read for the entire hour, and today, I grant them that privilege And you know what? They use it! Not all of them; after 15 minutes, when our timer goes off, some of them fill out their reading logs and begin to work on the project that's due in December, but the majority of the struggling readers read for the remainder of class. I dismiss them when the bell rings, take a stroll around the room to pick up candy wrappers and used Kleenexes and remove the non-recyclable materials students have carelessly thrown into the recycling bin, then I sit down to grade some papers.
... and this is an easy day in my life as an ESOL intervention teacher because silent reading days require little to no lesson planning on my part. As I leave for the day, I feel thankful that it, for the most part, was eventless, and I shudder at the thought of what tomorrow's curriculum directives might be, but try not to worry about it again until I arrive at school at 6:45 tomorrow morning.
