Well, the glee and excitement for teaching 5th grade was diminished greatly after meeting my team. The best way I can describe them is arctic and that's not easy to achieve here in Florida. Yikes! Without being too unkind I look back with a fresh perspective and realize they were all facing their own personal battles and due to being youthful they were unable to separate work and personal issues. I get it...I personally think it was good for me to face young and self-absorbed work mates because you see I remember being their age and not being all that nice either. I remember thinking it was ALL about me! So, I look back at those 4 months with that crew and realize KARMA has bitten me in the ass. Live and learn.
Now, to be fair it was just a rough year. I don't think I could have reentered into any school this year without it being just cray-cray! We just started common core hard and also were going to take a new standardized test called FSA. Nobody knew what was going on. NOBODY. It was incredibly crazy not knowing what you are suppose to be teaching when information was coming from every direction and always with a disclaimer of this may help you or it may not stick to the standards.
My fifth grade class was huge and unruly and loved to fight. Considering I'm only five feet tall and these kids respected nothing and had no issues with trying to beat the heck out of each other I chose to leave mid-year and transfer to another school. Yikes! Would I recommend this to anybody...no. But, when you feel as an adult you cannot keep one student from harming another because eventually they may turn on you, well my life is too precious to me and my family.So, I transferred to another school and it was tough too but here was the bonus. AMAZING teachers to work with. You can get through
I went down to a grade were most kids were still smaller than me and even though some had some real issues it was an amazing adventure. It was tiring...I came down with the flu twice! Guess who's not forgetting her flu shot this year!
Now, were my kiddos easier? No. I had some urban children who I can only imagine were living a life that would make me cringe. Kids came to school off a bus fighting. They were angry, hungry, and depressed. There's this line in the movie, "Becoming Jane" were her dad says, "Nothing destroys spirit like poverty". I believe this truly. How brave my kids were getting off a bus hungry because their last meal was the free lunch the day before at school and then coming into school to learn or try to learn whilst being hungry. I had this one kid who always complained about being hungry. I brought in cereal bars every now and then but I couldn't afford to feed everybody all the time. I can honestly say I felt utterly useless on some days because I could not help them all. I had 22 little souls in my class and EVERY single one was on free breakfast and lunch.
I had several kids that were also "old" in my class. They were retained in Kinder then retained in 3rd before at another school. So, they were 10 years old in third grade sitting along side by 8 year old babies. I still do not think this is right but apparently Florida (is it just my state) is big on retention. Some statistic about if you retain them early they will most likely finish high school but most of my "older" students were constantly being suspended. They were suspended from school because of fights on the bus for things like calling each other (derogatory names-not repeating here because lord knows I heard my fill of bad names this year). Also, I had one student in particular who was suspended for cigarette smoking in the bathroom, pulling out a needle from her hair and threatening to kill us all, stealing, calling me and the gym teacher names that I'm not lying when I say I was surprised she knew some of those "advanced" cuss words. She also accosted others in the restroom and this is all I remember from just a month ago. She had numerous other things she was written up for but I lost count.
I tried with her and others to give social lessons since we were not able to offer any at our school. But, it when in one ear and out the other. She and some others were in "survival" mode and any thing they deemed lost them respect meant it was time to fight. I never could really get her to calm down she would become VERY violent and throw desks and cuss us all out. But,I did have a boy who was labeled ODD. He too had a terrible time following rules. If he didn't feel like doing something he just didn't. He would walk around the room and call people names. At first I gave him attention he seeked, also sent him to the office, and then finally what worked for him was "do overs". Sometimes, he just had bad days and right from the bus he was in a mood. I would talk to him about "doing his morning over". To tell himself whatever happened before he came to school was done. He had the power to do his morning over to think good thoughts and to start over happy. This also worked during the day when he would start to make poor choices. At first, I thought maybe I was giving him to many chances but I'm a Christian and God gives me grace everyday. Therefore, I would show him Grace. Towards the end of our year together when he noticed he was going down the wrong path he started to self-correct. I would give him a warning. He would sometimes make the bad decision but I just ignored him. I started to say "You are making a poor decision, I believe you know how to make good decisions, now it's up to you". Then, I could go along with my teaching. He would eventually stop wait until I finished what I was doing, come up to me, and ask if he could have a "do-over". When I agreed he would apologize for his behavior. I'm not a therapist I don't even know if this was the best resolution but it worked for us. It meant keeping him in the classroom and not having him suspended over and over again only to fall farther and farther behind.
I learned a lot about myself this year. I have a breaking point but I can also persevere with Jesus. I prayed like I have never prayed before.
I am not sure what I will be teaching next year. I have been given my letter which states I'm set for 3rd grade again. But, we have changes happening at school. Our Principal transferred to another school and a new Principal starts soon. I'm not sure if she will keep us at the same grade levels or move us around. I did request to move down to 1st grade. It is where my heart is...but I am going to continue to pray about it. God knows where I belong. Woohoo! I made it!
