It's Like a Mosh Pit in Here

So we made it through the first week of school unscathed – mostly. Schedules are mostly settled, lockers are mostly assigned, and students mostly know how to open them, the kids are mostly behaving themselves… And I’m mostly exhausted. I have the largest homeroom class in the 7th and 8th grades with 34 students. When I walk into my class in the morning, passing the silent 28 kids next door, I walk into chatter. My regular classes are the same. After homeroom, I have a class of 31. After lunch, I have a class of 34. And after prep, I have a class of (*gulp*) 36. I spend most of my time shushing them. Okay, maybe not most of my time, but it certainly feels like it! I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have to shush them every 5 minutes, if not before. Every time there’s a break or a shift in the lesson, they start talking. Every time there is a transition or they have to get something out or put something away, they start talking. Every time I so much as PAUSE in what I’m saying, someone starts talking! (Seriously. They would make mincemeat of William Shatner.) In the middle of class on Friday, I was trying to give the instructions for a group activity that required them to move around in the classroom, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by the impossibility of the plan. There are just SO MANY of them…

Sometimes people seem surprised that I work during my summers. I spend my summer running summer day camps with my husband and three other leaders. We have 35 kids every week, and we organize field trips, lead games and activities, manage behavior, make them wash their hands a lot, etc. People seem so surprised that I would eat up my summer vacation time working, but it really is a vacation for me. All those kids, and FIVE leaders… It’s heaven. Now, back in my classroom, I keep looking around for some other leader to handle something on the other side of the room while I manage whatever crisis is closest to me. Tell me again why I’m supposed to be opposed to robot teachers taking over my profession?