Not in the Handbook

Words of encouragement from my Principal at my grade level meeting she visited- “Watch out for Mr (Me), statistics show that men leaving a career and moving into teaching are quick to vacate.” Woohoo I am fired up-thanks boss! I try not to take anything from it despite the fact I had to send a student to the office today and hope that didn’t prompt the remark.

In the manual they refer to classroom management and it can’t be stressed enough. I never knew my cattle herding skills from my youth would be so handy as with today- helping corral down a girl intent on moving about the class at her discretion and leisure. Defiant and mocking- with that knowing “I-know-you-can’t-do-anything-to-stop-me” look. So a dude ranch workshop might be a good idea for those of you trying to think of team building and educational experiences for your teaching co-workers. I had to call in my AP. I allow some latitude to moving about, but the devil in that detail is when one student gets so free wheeling and doesn’t have the response mechanism to behave when called to, that others who normally do toe the line (or at worst only flirt with it) become less inclined to do so.

Trying to stay upbeat- they’re kindergartners, it is only day six/week two, I am a first year teacher (also evidently I am ‘At-Risk’  being a man leaving a career for this one).

I do miss my energy for my own kids and the ever wonderful Digimom in the evening but I see it can get better and that is a hefty carrot.

I don’t like paperwork… might be in the wrong profession for that quirk of personality. I am really lost on my lesson plan. Having trouble sorting it out and then time to do it neatly. My first set covering next week is due and they are more a class schedule than plan. I know I’ll do them, and eventually better, I just ran out of time and drive to polish them now.

I have a 504 meeting for a student which i understand means they have special needs. I also have a seven year old that is having some issues with her home life and is very smart but with a recent flare up of some impressive defiance I think it may be she needs a change. I think she is a little bored and is just developmentally ahead of the class. Digimom says I should get her tested to advance to first if applicable. I am doing class assessments this and next week so we shall see.

Need to get the speed of the game to slow down too. I am living day to day for the most part on prep. Hopefully can get a week ahead this weekend if I can get with my mentor.

Upon day four of our journey and we have found a title for this little blog. I had one of my young wards come forth doing a not unfamiliar anxious dance covering his waist area. I proceeded to remind him of our class rule about not needing to ask to use the facilities since we have one in the room. He urgently informed me he knew that but that his pee-pee was caught in his zipper. That is definitely not in the handbook…. So from now on the blog shall be called not in the handbook.

It is wednesday. I would have made it home before 6 tonight except I had to go get a new laptop issued and received complimentary training. Also had my first staff meeting. I think I listened but between all the NTI (new teacher induction) stuff and various trainings I have been to over the past few weeks I have my filters set pretty tight on vital info only cause I was drowning in overload with no point of reference on how or what to use when.

Monday I had some jitters but with all the wonderful support I have had from friends (some I don’t even know- thanks plurkers) I was pretty well prepared to manage the day. A quick nod to these few of many- Martha, Helen, Susie, Sara, Christina, Mr Coach Frank, my kiddos for value perspective an test runs an most of all- my beloved Digimom! Of course all plans stop once the first bullet flies or first tantrum-ing kinder runs through the parking lot because he doesn’t want to leave recess. Didn’t cover that once in any of the aforementioned training onslaught- and when it happens it is handy info to have. But he got back to class and it prepped me for the next day when it started to happen again. Of course it started on the playground and I had already prepped the aides. Rarely do we have numbers but we did this time and it carried the day.

Now the weeks leading up to the First Day- I had been re-watching my “Band of Brothers” DVD series from years back because my whole grade level is a reset except one who was a first year teacher last year. So two handed down from higher grades for test scores reasons, two pure newbs( including yours truly) and one  kinder vet of twenty years but has been overseas teaching high school the last two years and our grade leader with all of one year of experience under her belt. Currahee! So yes as a history student I was studying the airborne training for DDay to prep for kindergarten- in hindsight more appropriate than I planned! I had been looking for team building insight and it helped with that by giving me the focus on bringing my grade level together. The obvious is it reminded me too it could be MUCH worse- as I have been blessed to avoid experiencing the atrocities of war. Lastly it gave me this quote to surviving the first week. and I paraphrase “The secret is- you are already dead- so trust to your training and do your job and don’t worry about the rest.” Thanks Lt. Spiers (no relation as the spelling may indicate).

So armed with that I carried/-y on.

Tuesday was a few more tantrums but I focused on making it more fun and freed from the bureaucracy laden effort of new supplies and navigating for myself and the students the infinite school routines of attendance, second attendance, lunch count, getting to and fro on-time, and then all the myriad ways to get my little charges home it went much better on day 2. I would have gotten home about 4:30 then but we had our grade level meeting planning for what will come up and that ran till six. Nothing concrete came out except we all realize we need to be looking ahead to a lot of work shaping lesson plans. So let’s call it meta-planning because schools loves them some neat buzz words.

Back to today- my PE runner who with my other two special angels I have, showed some progress though still were handfuls. Today was on the verge of being pretty good. I had a cool gingerbreadman hunt activity planned  I had totally stolen (with approval if that makes sense) from the 20 year kinder vet. Of course I didn’t bake a gingerbreadman and my wife all but shoo-ed me from my guilt over it as she recounted all the regs on giving out food. So long story short, I improvised with a large size cutout gingerbread I decorated and had on a yarn string about my neck and slung on my back. It was humorous as I feigned ignorance through the early part of our day to his presence. We had read the story the day before and i had prepped them to a suprise visitor. Eventually I pulled him around to the front and channeled my best “Gingy-voice-from-Shrek” to have talks with him about everything in our morning routine much to the wee kinders delight. Of course in my head I said ‘oh no I am Mr Garrison from South Park!’ We then traipsed around the school looking for clues before finding him and the small scale necklaces I had made for all of them. It went well except for all the vomiting. Two students, three pukes, spread liberally about the campus throughout the day. I won’t go in to details but both initial instances happened after I had sent them to the nurse for queasy stomachs and when returned to me they both promptly puked. The second instance for one child was when the dad, summoned to take his angel home, asked her if she felt ok and did she want to stay- to which she said yes and after he departed – and lost his cell promptly- she puked within the hour in my class. So it was good the clinic had been part of our Gingerbread man hunt- and doubly good I didn’t load them up with more ‘ammo’ by baking cookies!

So over halfway through my first week and I have moved from feeling like I was running a day care to moving towards at least getting some of the kids into a pre-k mode. Hopefully in my next post I will have moved some into full blown kindergarten.