Fourth Week of January

MONDAY
Resolution Report: Um… well, I went in to buy a new travel mug, and a didn’t have access to my classroom coffee maker, so… It doesn’t really count, right? I still haven’t made any SCHOOL DAY morning Starbucks stops. (I had a sub and spent the day at meetings.) Argh. I'm not going to beat myself up over this; I'm just going to start fresh tomorrow. So there.


TUESDAY
So I keep writing little sticky notes to myself and putting them on the nice white space on my computer monitor (about 4” tall by 12” wide – thanks, Mac). For reasons known only to my subconscious, sometimes I write on the sticky note so that the sticky part is on the side, and sometimes I write on them properly so the sticky part is on the top. Now I have this weird little sticky note forest on my computer. I can't see what's on them any more, but that's not what really bothers me. What really bothers me is that I keep trying to get them to stay flat against the computer, and they keep flapping out again. *sigh* I can’t see the trees for the forest.


WEDNESDAY
What a crazy day. It was the last day of the quarter, but no one seemed all that concerned. (I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.) My head is like one giant to-do list. I’m pretty sure it’s about to explode, and the shrapnel pieces will be scraps of sticky note with my scribbled reminders on them. Tonight, I plan to stay up late reading my book and NOT working on grades. (Oh dear… This might make my resolution more difficult to keep.)


THURSDAY
Good grief. I remembered why I hate inservices so much. We spent the first 2 hours acting out situations from a hand-out. (We are adults with college degrees… we couldn’t just read and discuss?!!) My team’s part was frighteningly short, and if I was doing this again (which I probably never will), I would have tried to give a LOT more explanation.

I am fascinated by the way that teachers behave at inservices. We really do make the worst students. At every inservice, there seems to be someone who feel free to make snarky comments or sarcastic remarks about whatever is being presented (or who is presenting it), but becomes filled with righteous judgment and disapproval if anyone else around them does the same thing. I’m not opposed to snarky, sarcastic comments about the presentation, but at least allow the people who have to listen to you the same freedom. My favorite way to listen to an inservice is to write on sticky notes and stick them in front of the person next to me. (This worked better when I actually knew the people at my school.)

Resolution Report: It’s just one morning, and I did NOT have access to my classroom coffee maker today. Also, I had to sit through an inservice. Also, I was really tired because I stayed up too late the night before. Don’t judge me…


FRIDAY
Today, I had the easiest teacher-discipline meeting of my entire union career. We were done in ten minutes, and at least 4 of those minutes were spent making small talk. The real part of the meeting went something like this... (Objects have been changed to protect anonymity.)

“A student reported that you threw an eraser in his general direction. Did you do that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Okay, we can’t have you doing that; it’s dangerous. You accidentally hit the side of the kid’s head. Did you mean to hit him?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I know you didn't. He said that you had really bad aim, so he knew you didn’t mean to hit him. From now on, no eraser throwing, okay?”
“Okay. I won’t do that again.”
“I know you won’t. I’m taking notes on this meeting right now so that if a parent calls to complain about the incident, I can prove that we talked to you about it already. Thanks for coming in today.”

Why can’t they all be like that? There was hardly anything for me to take notes on. I could put the notes from this meeting on a sticky note. (And add it to the sticky-note forest on my computer… okay, maybe not.)