Things I Forgot to Mention

There were a few things about yesterday that I failed to mention. They're both kind of "big."

One was that the students watched a registration video and got information on registering for the fall. This happened during second period and since Ms Doherty has prep that hour, she sent me to Ms Ryan's room. Ms Ryan is a teacher she team teaches with during 1st hour where she has several special ed students (EBD and LD and such). They've been team teaching this English 10 class for years, so they have a good rapport with one another. Ms Ryan then teaches strictly special ed kids, so there were only four students in this science room when I came to observe the registration process (and some classroom management) with two aids. It was like a completely different world--this kind of thing is going on while other classes just merrily continue? It seemed like a continual struggle (reminding me of dealing with a certain someone at Crosswinds)--like baby-sitting quite often. So-and-so, you need to sit down; so-and-so, you need to stop touching that. One kid laid out across the desks--the same kid that wandered off for a drink, the same kid that had a pile of sunflower seeds on his desk, the same kid that was messing with science equipment for fun. Another one kept swearing about how he was failing and how it wasn't fair and how his parents kicked him out again (one aid said to him, "Oh boo hoo, your mom doesn't really meant that"--I couldn't figure out if that was because the kid does a woe is me routine a lot or if he truly wasn't being sensitive). I don't know if I could ever deal with strictly EBD students all day. It really must take it out of them. I know that I have a handful of students with an IEP in the spring, but most of them, from what Ms Doherty knows, are LD, which is entirely different.

The other thing is that I have met the school principal officially! Her name is Connie Nicholson and she seemed really nice. Who knows--I might stick around the Twin Cities next year if things don't work out in southern Minnesota (I have to find a job for next year, though I don't exactly want to do the long distance thing any more with Ryan)--so I hope I made a decent impression. I'll have to continue to work at making a decent impression over the next few months.

There was something else that I forgot to mention about yesterday, but that's OK. It'll come back to me when I'm not so out of it. Time to shower and get to classes... Some day I'm going to get all the reading done for my four classes so I can completely concentrate on lesson planning (maybe this weekend I can just start ticking them off--we'll see). I did get a substantial amount of TKAM read while sitting in Ms Doherty's class, The Mighty's second half running for the second and third time. Vocabulary is such fun.