A bad case of the Mondays

All in all it was not a terrible day....just a super frustrating one.

I leave my house at the usual time to make it to school 10 minutes early. I get on the highway and it's at a standstill due to an accident. I make it to the next exit a mile up the road and take the back roads, however, I am now 15 minutes behind schedule and 5 minutes late. Not the best way to start a Monday.

I get to school and get all of my belongings to lug inside: teacher bag/purse, lunch, and random box of teacher-y things I found in my spare room. As my hand reaches for the door to enter the building, the door is slammed open (into my foot) and two boys run out of the building. Using every single bit of teacher sweetness in me, I ignore my now throbbing toe, gently remind the boys to not run in (or out of) the building, and redirect them to the gym.

I head down the hall to my classroom where my students are already lining up. I get in, hastily set up morning work (all the while thanking the Good Lord I stayed late Friday to set up), and welcome my kinder heros with a smile.

Unfortunately, I was not the only one with a bad case of the Mondays. Today we had:

3 I-miss-my-mommy crying moments
5 I-will-not-hit-other-people timeouts
3 Non-green-happy-faces on behavior reports
1 completely-unprovoked-super-big-crying-tantrum

Tomorrow can only get better.

Even on super long, frustrating days....I love my job!

Hard

I'm back, and I have the interwebs again!!!  ((Insert happy dance here))

Truth be told, I've had internet back for a few days now, but it has been all kinds of crazy and I am just now getting back to blogging. Between BOE meetings, professional development, and spring fever, a lot has happened. I'll be covering recent events in later posts, but for now I need to talk about today.

Today was the hardest day I have had in my professional career. Today was the day I almost gave up.

You see, I have the distinct privilege of teaching a little boy we will call...Bill.  This is his second time around in kinder, a fact I still don't quite understand (he's one of my best readers). Little Bill has quite a reputation in our school, one he has built into an identity for himself. His world is constantly filled with angry people, mainly people angry at him. He is known to be loud, disruptive, defiant, and violent...an all around "bad" kid. In fact, on the very first day of school he said to me "I'm gonna try really hard and be good in this class. I know I'm bad, but I'm gonna try."

Did you catch that? He knows HE is bad.

Breaks your hear doesn't it? It broke mine. I vowed I would do everything I could to show him that HE is not bad, however, the choices he makes are.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, Little Bill has been a holy terror some days...ok, most days. In fact, he had two suspensions under his belt for this year. However, I know that we've made progress. He learned to remove himself from potential bad situations, and to come get me instead of resorting to other behaviors (hitting, pushing, yelling, etc.). He sits and participates in our morning group lessons. He actually does his work, and then turns it in. 

Progress.

Until today. 

This morning did not go well for Little Bill. Disruptive choices lead to isolation from the rest of the group. He was angry, and chose to take it out on another student during the lunch/recess transition. 

I was positively livid. The mama bear/ monster teacher in me came out ( usually only happens when one of my tots is threated/hurt by another). I let him know that he was done. For good. Period. End of Story. Amen. 

He was no longer welcome in my class ever again. My principal backed it up with a suspension.He sat in the office the rest of the day, waiting for his ride home. 

During plan, I ran an errand down in the office. Little Bill asked for permission to use the restroom. As I'm walking down the hallway, I hear his voice call out "Hi, Ms. S____". I chose to ignore him and keep walking.

I regretted that 2 nanoseconds afterwards, but he was already gone.

In all the conversations we've had about behavior, I have tried over and over to help him understand that he is worth something, he is not bad, he matters, that I see HIM. And, like I said, we'd made progress.

And I destroyed, or at least damaged, that progress with 2 seconds of silence.

The beautiful thing about kindergarten is that there is plenty of room for mistakes, even for the teacher. We are all learning and growing together...which is really hard sometimes, but always worth it.

Even on hard days... I love my job.

Parents

It's been a long week filled with even longer days. Parent-Teacher Conference Week. Our district only requires us to stay late on Thursday night, with a half day on Friday (no school for kids), but most teachers, myself included, offer parents any time after school for the first four days of the work week or Friday morning. After all, the goal is 100% attendance.

Sidebar: It is  a complete and utter joke to expect 100% attendance when we have absolutely no influence over whether or not a parent shows up. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Although it means long hours, I do really enjoy conference time. It gives me a chance to assure parents that we are all on the same team, and no matter what preconceived notions they might have, I am here for the best interest of their child.

And of course, the kids love it too. They get to show the people most important to them what they have accomplished in the 28 days that we've been in school. It's a hoot watching them give a tour of a our little world, making sure little brother and/or sister follow all of our classroom rules (even if they didn't during the day!)

Truth in Play

I am a big advocate for play. I think it crucial to the way children develop socially, emotionally, and cognitively. It allows children to express what they may not be able to during direct one-on-one conversation, and provides teachers/parents/child specialists a chance to glimpse the world of a child, as evidenced by a particular conversation in my classroom.

During Free Centers, it is not uncommon for my students to involve me in their imaginative play. One of my boys, who I have mentally nicknamed Warrior, decided he wanted to be a bad robot.

"Ms.S, I'm going to kill you."

"Really, why?"

"Because I am a bad robot."

"Why are you a bad robot? Why not be a good robot?"

"I don't know. I'm just bad. Maybe I came from a bad factory."

Now, many people would have flipped out after hearing his initial statement, given the current climate from recent events. But I know how little boys play, and more importantly, I know this kid, so I didn't take it as a threat, but a compliment. He felt comfortable enough with me to include me in his play, to invite me into his world, which for this little boy is a big deal. But this conversation did confirm that there is much turmoil under his clam, quiet everyday demeanor. My heart aches for him, and all I can do is continue to love him and pray that he comes to understand that he is not a bad robot, no matter what the other voices in his life say.

Spring Fever...

has sprung. It was positively insane today.

On the news a few weeks ago, a kindergarten teacher was in hot water for cutting one of her students braids. Of course, the mother was irate, and the teacher was appropriately disciplined. Her reason for cutting the braid...the student would not stop playing with it.

A few weeks ago, I laughed...today, I totally know where she is coming from.

While I was able to control my emotions enough to avoid making the 10 o'clock news, getting through today was as hard as whistling peanut butter. Every 10 seconds I was reminding a talkative student that it was learning time, or "helping" someone control their bodies (by helping, I mean isolation and think time, otherwise known as a timeout). However, we managed to make it through all of our lessons today, and even managed to squeeze in some extra outside play time (to get the wiggles out).

The highlight of our day was an unexpected visitor, or visitors: Travis & Presley They even brought us gifts (an autographed book and DVD for every child). We were so excited to meet Presley, and we were even allowed to pet him! I wish I would have thought to grab my camera, everyone was amazed/in love with the dog. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was great!