Hi.
School started last Wednesday. After staying up all summer until 1 a.m. and lounging in bed until 10 a.m., I'm back on a schedule. Up at 6:30 a.m. and back in bed by 10.
Every year my work schedule changes. This year I'm a morning greeter, followed by doing literature and spelling with special needs 3rd and 4th graders, then lit with 5th and 6th graders. After that I'm off to kindergarten. Our poor kindergarten teachers each have 29 students this year. It's like herding cats! I have a 45 minute lunch/break, then its math time for the first and second graders...followed by 3rd and 4th graders, then 5th and 6th graders.
Our school buses have not been arriving on time because the person who schedules them quit abruptly, and nobody seems to know what's going on. They completely eliminated service to one of the main roads on the Lummi Reservation where several of our students live. So the students have to catch a bus at our school, then go to another school and transfer to another bus which will take them to the end of their road...where they will walk home. This isn't easy for the little guys! So I've been staying after my scheduled shift and making sure that the older kids know exactly what/where they're supposed to be, and asking them to keep an eye on the younger children. Two days ago a bus driver was so annoyed with his rowdy passengers that he parked in the school lot and refused to take them home until they settled down. They sat there for a whole hour! I think (hope) he was dismissed after that. I know that driving a bus is trying job, but c'mon!
Our school computers aren't working right and we can't open our mail or use the internet, and as of today many classrooms still have no computers at all for their students. Notwithstanding, I found the usual form in my mailbox demanding that I pledge not to surf the web while working. No problem! I have neither the equipment nor the time to surf the web.
I'm pooped! My feet ache from being on them all day and by 10 p.m. I'm asleep in the recliner. Hence, fewer posts and comments. I expect to be acclimated to my new schedule in a week or so.
I love my job. I really mean that. Wouldn't want to do anything else!
Whatsoever Things Are Lovely... looking for life's beauty through faith, family, art, and nature.
4 comments:
I am exhausted from YOUR schedule, and to even imagine 29 kindergarteners makes me want to lie down and have a nightmare about the bus issue.
Hope you have a great year:)
Yikes! I'm pooped just reading what you are doing each day. Blessings on you and the little ones...
That is real passion to love what you do through thick and thin:)
Good teachers are "saints". I have worked with the best(and the worst) and I believe that it takes a very special person to be a teacher.
Thank you for being someone who loves what she does and, it would appear, does it with affection and an inter source of stamina.
Teaching can be a thankless job so I just want to say... Thank you.
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