Ink, ink everywhere
I need to watch a teacher who knows what they're doing tame a class of unwieldy adolescents. Detentions don't work, throwing them out of class doesn't work. But I'm the only person who has these problems in my department. All eyes are on me in so many ways, and then today there was a pen explosion out in the hallway before my class. I looked down to get something for a student and when I looked up, there was ink on my floor, too. I didn't know about the hallway at the time. So one kid goes to get paper towels, but there weren't any in the bathroom. So I decided to just leave it there because I didn't want maintenence coming up and interrupting my lesson. Then another student goes to the bathroom and tells me there's ink in the hallway. So now I call maintenence. They lollygag there way up there, and it's worse than I thought in the hallway. By now it's almost the end of the period. None of my students have blue hands or blue footprints, so I'm not sure who did it. But all eyes are on me because this shows "poor classroom management" and, according to the bf, poor judgement in not calling sooner re: the mess. From a manegerial standpoint, that makes sense, but from a teaching stand point...well, maintence would've been bad. ESPECIALLY since this class was ACTUALLY WORKING for a change, and given the 7th-period, day-before-cycle-change, day-before-uber-storm, I was so happy about that, I didn't want to break the flow. My mentor told me she'd stick up for me on the matter but...maybe this is a sign. Maybe I'll get a "thanks but no thanks" letter come April and then I'll have to find work elsewhere, in education or no. I still feel like I can be a good teacher, but no one has given me anything to work with regarding classroom management. G'ah, I suck. Hard vaccuum.
So now I'm off to correct the tests my freshmen took. I also have to plan for a class of seniors 7th period tomorrow. G'ah again.
I can't think of anything non-work-related to say. Except that I want to take a nap. But that's not going to happen. So off to correct I go.
(Hee hee, I'm posting at 4:20)
3 Comments:
Allow me to clarify my quote before the people here jump on me. Since it wasn't in your classrom, you are correct that it does not (should not, at least) reflect on your classroom management. However, to alleviate responsibility and fingers pointing in your direction, it would have been correct to call maintenance immediately. That way the blame falls to them as to why the whole hallway is a mess now. As the story currently plays out, you knew there was a problem and left it there and it spawned a larger problem in the hall. This is also slightly different than I had understood last night on the phone. When you said calling maintenance would disturb the class as the mess was cleaned, I thought the pool of ink was in your classroom..... not in the hall. Isn't there a door to your classroom?
In any case, the whole situation sounds like a big fiasco over what I would think of as being WAY below radar. Are you being overly sensitive, or are they being overly anal?
The ink was both in my room and in the hallway. Having maintence come immediately to my room to clean up the ink would have disturbed my class. If I'd known about the ink in the hallway earlier, I would've called about both situations.
Adendum: wasn't trying to make you look bad, babe.
Post a Comment
<< Home