Thursday, April 26, 2007

Losing what little of my mind is left

This has been a trying week at work in some ways. It's spring and it just feels like the kids have lost their minds completely. The principal warned us last week that the kids would start feeding off our energy. She said that we cannot start thinking in vacation mode because the adult idea of vacation is relaxation. The kid version? Disneyland. And so she said that if we, as the adults, buy into this energy, then the kids will start treating the classrooms like they're in Disneyland. My Disneyland only has two rides -- the Teacups and Mr. Toad's.

This kind of happened yesterday. The math coach came into the room to do a lesson with the kids and they completely lost their minds. One of my coworkers later told me that she would offer me a glass of wine if she had some around. I told her that I was going to need something stronger than wine. I also had to take a number of deep breaths. Perhaps when it is not so fresh, I will share the gory details.

Now the real fun is that earlier in the week I had to complete progress reports. I got to discuss fun things like behavior. It's really hard to be objective when you've just been subjected to a few days of Disneyland.

Of course, next week is the start of state testing. So the kids are a little freaked out. And I'm spending every day telling them things like, "Just do your best. It's not about you; it's about me." Or, "I know we haven't covered that yet. I don't expect you to know it on the test. And that's OK."

At least we have the fun of the movie project to keep us inspired. And hopefully, balanced.

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