Five...FIVE...5 Posts in ONE!
Great Googley Moogley! Just a few days ago, I was complaining
how nothing interesting has happened to blog about. Be careful
what you complain about.
1) This morning, as I was minding my own business, sitting at my
hand-me-down wooden desk, a student came up to use a tissue.
He used the last one of my Puffs Plus With Aloe, and proceeded
to play with the empty box, much in the way a cat will bat a ball
of yarn back and forth between its paws. Except that he's much
larger than a cat, and not so cute, and a tissue box is bigger and
sharper-cornered than a ball of yarn, and the kid's hands are
not quite so dexterous as a cat's paws. I was writing in my grade-
book when out of nowhere, a tissue box SLAMMED into my
right shoulder, and bounce off the desk onto the floor. Every
student looked up. Every mouth gaped open. The look on their
faces read: "Oh, you are SO dead!"
What did I do, master teacher that I am? I looked at the students.
I looked at the box-batter. He ducked his head. He picked up
the tissue box and crushed it, and dropped it in the wastebasket.
"Hey," I told him. "I use those over and over. I buy box of new
ones and put half in there, then take the other half to the middle
school." He picked the crumpled box out of the trash, straightened
it in much the way you could straighten a car that has been crushed
in a car compacter...which is poorly. I swiped it off the desk into
the trash. "Well, it's ruined now. I guess I'll have to get another
one." I walked to the cabinet and brought out a half-full box of
tissues. The students looked at the box-batter. He didn't know
what to say.
I asked him, "Are you sorry?" He said, "Yeah." So I replied,
"That's all I needed to know. Now we can go on with class. Just
let me wipe away my tears. You know this has traumatized me..."
OK, so maybe I laid it on a bit thick, but what if he'd done that
to Mr. K, or someone who is more serious than me. Uh, huh.
I was only trying to make him write a mental Note To Self: Don't
bat around the empty tissue box on the teacher's desk, lest it
escape and hit the teacher.
2) I sent my third hour kids off to lunch when the bell rang at
10:53, and they came right back, like boomerangs. Something
was up in the cafeteria, and all students were returned to class.
A student said someone had collapsed in the lunch line, right
after coming to lunch from PE. So that kind of put a crimp in
the hot ham and cheese line. We responded by the book, the
kids were removed from the scene, the ambulance was called.
It worked like clockwork. 20 minutes of clockwork. So my
students and I lost 20 minutes of our 21-minute lunch. Yes,
that's right. First lunch is 10:57 to 11:18. It seems like they got
a little extra time, and didn't have to leave at the bell. I don't
know, because I ate in my classroom today, because I knew
I was going to be a little short on time anyway because of.....
3) The tone (aka The Bell) at high school has been restored to
real world time. I can no longer arrive at the middle school before
I've left high school. This will cut about 15 minutes out of my plan
time, but I am fortunate not to have much to plan. And it beats
starting work 15 minutes earlier than middle school, then going
there to be dismissed 15 minutes after high school. So I am
agreeable to losing 15 minutes of plan time to avoid working
30 extra minutes a day.
4) Because of the lunch issue, I got a bit of a late start on my travel
between buildings. No big deal, I thought. I've still got plenty of
time. I started up the big hill, and saw a police car pull out of the
side street that I take to the middle school. No, he wasn't after
me. He was coming toward me...right down the middle of the
road."WTF?" I asked myself, because I am kind of inappropriate
when the kids aren't around. It was a funeral. That street runs
right behind the funeral home. I pulled off the road, as is the
custom around these parts. I counted 25 cars in the procession.
I did not think this town had 25 cars. So that made me just a
bit behind schedule, but still on time with 15 minutes to spare.
Which was a good thing, because it takes 10 minutes to get my
computer logged on and to the screen to take roll on line, which
is another thorn in my side because it should not take that long.
I've had a work order in since Jan. 18.
5) Good thing that my class had a lot to do, because it let me
just about get caught up with my high school record-keeping
before my Hillbilly Mama showed up outside my classroom with
my boy young 'uns, who she'd taken to the doctor for me. Seems
they both had been referred to the hospital for tests: #1 son for
a lung X-ray due to a 4-week-long cough, and #2 son for the
lung X-ray and an EKG due to a rapid heartbeat after 3 days of
fever and dry cough. Sooo....it was off to the hospital.
Another two good things: she arrived during a visit from the
counselor to deliver a letter for a kid to take home (which he
promptly opened even though she told him not to--there's a
reason he's in my class) so she watched my class while I made
arrangements to leave. AND, the teacher across the hall
volunteered to take my 6th and 7th hour kids, and do my bus
duty (even though the principal said he'd do it for me). These
people rock in a crisis, I tell you.
To wrap up my day of adventures, I had to go back to the
doctor's office, because the lab techs said the doctor needed
to look at the X-rays. Which is their way of saying something
doesn't look right, but we can't tell you because we're not
radiologists. Which apparently the doctor isn't either, because
after waiting 50 minutes with poor #2 sleeping on my shoulder,
he said it looked fine to him, but he'd wait until tomorrow for
the radiologist's report. AND he didn't call in the antibiotic that
he said he was going to, so #2 only got a generic Zyrtec for
30 days, which is not the issue here. I am keeping him home
tomorrow, just because. Any time a kid needs an chest X-ray
and an EKG, and has been run all around the county for 6 hours,
I think he deserves it. And poor #1, whose X-rays looked OK,
got some Nasonex, and 3 hours worth of homework. The kid
who collapsed supposedly had a blood sugar of 45, so I hope
that's all it was and everything worked out OK. I'll find out
tomorrow.
I am sort of hoping for a slow, boring day.
how nothing interesting has happened to blog about. Be careful
what you complain about.
1) This morning, as I was minding my own business, sitting at my
hand-me-down wooden desk, a student came up to use a tissue.
He used the last one of my Puffs Plus With Aloe, and proceeded
to play with the empty box, much in the way a cat will bat a ball
of yarn back and forth between its paws. Except that he's much
larger than a cat, and not so cute, and a tissue box is bigger and
sharper-cornered than a ball of yarn, and the kid's hands are
not quite so dexterous as a cat's paws. I was writing in my grade-
book when out of nowhere, a tissue box SLAMMED into my
right shoulder, and bounce off the desk onto the floor. Every
student looked up. Every mouth gaped open. The look on their
faces read: "Oh, you are SO dead!"
What did I do, master teacher that I am? I looked at the students.
I looked at the box-batter. He ducked his head. He picked up
the tissue box and crushed it, and dropped it in the wastebasket.
"Hey," I told him. "I use those over and over. I buy box of new
ones and put half in there, then take the other half to the middle
school." He picked the crumpled box out of the trash, straightened
it in much the way you could straighten a car that has been crushed
in a car compacter...which is poorly. I swiped it off the desk into
the trash. "Well, it's ruined now. I guess I'll have to get another
one." I walked to the cabinet and brought out a half-full box of
tissues. The students looked at the box-batter. He didn't know
what to say.
I asked him, "Are you sorry?" He said, "Yeah." So I replied,
"That's all I needed to know. Now we can go on with class. Just
let me wipe away my tears. You know this has traumatized me..."
OK, so maybe I laid it on a bit thick, but what if he'd done that
to Mr. K, or someone who is more serious than me. Uh, huh.
I was only trying to make him write a mental Note To Self: Don't
bat around the empty tissue box on the teacher's desk, lest it
escape and hit the teacher.
2) I sent my third hour kids off to lunch when the bell rang at
10:53, and they came right back, like boomerangs. Something
was up in the cafeteria, and all students were returned to class.
A student said someone had collapsed in the lunch line, right
after coming to lunch from PE. So that kind of put a crimp in
the hot ham and cheese line. We responded by the book, the
kids were removed from the scene, the ambulance was called.
It worked like clockwork. 20 minutes of clockwork. So my
students and I lost 20 minutes of our 21-minute lunch. Yes,
that's right. First lunch is 10:57 to 11:18. It seems like they got
a little extra time, and didn't have to leave at the bell. I don't
know, because I ate in my classroom today, because I knew
I was going to be a little short on time anyway because of.....
3) The tone (aka The Bell) at high school has been restored to
real world time. I can no longer arrive at the middle school before
I've left high school. This will cut about 15 minutes out of my plan
time, but I am fortunate not to have much to plan. And it beats
starting work 15 minutes earlier than middle school, then going
there to be dismissed 15 minutes after high school. So I am
agreeable to losing 15 minutes of plan time to avoid working
30 extra minutes a day.
4) Because of the lunch issue, I got a bit of a late start on my travel
between buildings. No big deal, I thought. I've still got plenty of
time. I started up the big hill, and saw a police car pull out of the
side street that I take to the middle school. No, he wasn't after
me. He was coming toward me...right down the middle of the
road."WTF?" I asked myself, because I am kind of inappropriate
when the kids aren't around. It was a funeral. That street runs
right behind the funeral home. I pulled off the road, as is the
custom around these parts. I counted 25 cars in the procession.
I did not think this town had 25 cars. So that made me just a
bit behind schedule, but still on time with 15 minutes to spare.
Which was a good thing, because it takes 10 minutes to get my
computer logged on and to the screen to take roll on line, which
is another thorn in my side because it should not take that long.
I've had a work order in since Jan. 18.
5) Good thing that my class had a lot to do, because it let me
just about get caught up with my high school record-keeping
before my Hillbilly Mama showed up outside my classroom with
my boy young 'uns, who she'd taken to the doctor for me. Seems
they both had been referred to the hospital for tests: #1 son for
a lung X-ray due to a 4-week-long cough, and #2 son for the
lung X-ray and an EKG due to a rapid heartbeat after 3 days of
fever and dry cough. Sooo....it was off to the hospital.
Another two good things: she arrived during a visit from the
counselor to deliver a letter for a kid to take home (which he
promptly opened even though she told him not to--there's a
reason he's in my class) so she watched my class while I made
arrangements to leave. AND, the teacher across the hall
volunteered to take my 6th and 7th hour kids, and do my bus
duty (even though the principal said he'd do it for me). These
people rock in a crisis, I tell you.
To wrap up my day of adventures, I had to go back to the
doctor's office, because the lab techs said the doctor needed
to look at the X-rays. Which is their way of saying something
doesn't look right, but we can't tell you because we're not
radiologists. Which apparently the doctor isn't either, because
after waiting 50 minutes with poor #2 sleeping on my shoulder,
he said it looked fine to him, but he'd wait until tomorrow for
the radiologist's report. AND he didn't call in the antibiotic that
he said he was going to, so #2 only got a generic Zyrtec for
30 days, which is not the issue here. I am keeping him home
tomorrow, just because. Any time a kid needs an chest X-ray
and an EKG, and has been run all around the county for 6 hours,
I think he deserves it. And poor #1, whose X-rays looked OK,
got some Nasonex, and 3 hours worth of homework. The kid
who collapsed supposedly had a blood sugar of 45, so I hope
that's all it was and everything worked out OK. I'll find out
tomorrow.
I am sort of hoping for a slow, boring day.
posted by Hillbilly Mom at 6:22 PM
6 Comments:
I was writing in my grade-
book when out of nowhere, a tissue box SLAMMED into my right shoulder, and bounce off the desk onto the floor.
There must be days when you don't want to do it.
Having worked for an school education department, it means I have a lot of time for front-line teachers (in general). Just don't get me started on shiny-bum education administrators.
(no, I'm not a teacher, I worked in IT).
Oh wow. I have a headache now. #3 and the time warping and the 15 minutes and oh gosh, my little diva brain won't wrap around that. It must be wonderful to be smart AND OH SO PRETTY.
I wonder how long I'll continue on telling you you're OH SO PRETTY every day....probably until you call the cops and tell 'em I'm stalking you, eh?
I don't remember what it was like to be a kid with a lunch hour, but is 20 minutes long enough to eat lunch? Is that normal, or do you think that's a bit on the short side?
Too bad you couldn't have taken that crumpled up tissue box and beaned that kid on the head with it. Hey, fair's fair.He popped you, you should have been able to pop him. But I know that's probably frowned upon...something about kids having rights or child abuse or whatever.
http://www.danno.org/blogs
Lantern,
There are some days like that, but this incident was kind of funny, because the look on that kid's face was OH, SO 'I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT'!
Don't get me started on administrators, either.
Diva,
Yes it is.
I would never report someone for telling me I'm OH SO PRETTY. Unless it's a freakish woman in the Save-A-Lot.
Chick,
For the kids, that is the right amount of time. They wolf it down, and get antsy. For the teachers, it is not enough time to decompress.
I would rather have popped 'Mum', the kid who punched me last year, but you're right, that IS kind of frowned upon. Go figure.
I once was in a class and the student teacher beaned a kid in the head with a pencil because he was sleeping. I didn't think it was wrong. Still don't. But he could have put out an eye so maybe pencils shouldn't be thrown but kleenex boxes should be on the list!
Mrs.,
That's a good idea. You are a good problem-solver, a credit to Hillmombia.
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