A good week

I hope that I am not premature in calling this week at school good.  The behavior of my kids has improved I am happy to announce. Today was a bit rough and I was behind most of the day. I was constantly waiting for kids to stop talking so I could give directions either to the whole class or to the grade level that I am working with.  I had kids in at all recesses and some that chose not to come in! They don't realise that their choices affect the whole class and that when I have to shorten assignments or continually wait, I have to take their time after the school day.  I had kids who's bosses came looking for them after school today. Oh well, if the kids waste my teaching time and then I am going to "waste" their time after school or recess.  They had seven minutes owed to me today and I had to restart the timer about three minutes into the time because someone talked! BUMMER!!!  It takes everyone's efforts to work together and particularly in an environment like this, one person who is not putting in their best efforts affects the process. It's like an assembly line, if the person who inspects the item to standard doesn't check thoroughly every time, then less goods of poorer quality will be produced. 
I also gave out report cards for midterm grades.  Needless to say I once again had to give several of my students my standard lecture of " I don't GIVE you grades, like you are "GIVEN" presents. You have to earn them." Many of my students are convinced that I am grading them wrong or giving them poor grades because I don't like them. Ha...we all know that is about as far from the truth that you can get!  Once again, I am seeing a familiar theme with the kids of no not holding themselves accountable and blaming the situation on someone else.  Of course, when you put 14 students in one room with a teacher, it always becomes the teacher's fault!!!

Many of you are probably wondering what I do every day after school until 6pm (or, in today's case, 6:45pm). Well, here is a picture to give you an inkling of what I grade everyday after school. Sometimes the height of the pile varies depending on whether the students do work out of workbooks or text books (in which case they just turn in loose-leaf notebook paper. If it weren't for the wonderful help of my aid, the height of my pile would be double because of the daily workbooks the kids do for all the subjects.  Tomorrow is Friday...TGIF!! Then it's off to another adventure for the weekend!