A Day in The Life of . . .

I rolled out of bed at 5:05 this morning and tripped over the cat who had already spent the past hour sleeping draped across my legs. The cat always heads straight for her food dish (whether it needs attention or not) I follow her so that she will know I have checked on the state of her nutritional supply. If the bottom of the dish is showing it requires replenishment and she will not stop tripping me until I take care of that. I filled her dish of course. Then I stumbled into the bathroom to take care of all the grooming stuff we all do - shower, hair, makeup, dress for work. By 5:30 I unlocked the door & turned off the alarm so my Seminary kids could get in without setting it off; loaded a few dishes into the dishwasher, washed the countertops, and ran downstairs to get ready for Seminary. Since I fell asleep last night without doing it I had to choose hymns for my lesson and load the video we used today. I sat and reviewed my lesson until 6:10 when my class finally showed up. We sang and prayed and read Hebrews 11 and talked about faith and promises. The video depicted a young man who was a recent convert faced with the choice of whether to work on Sunday or not. Hebrew 11 promises that the lord will always reward those who have faith even in the face of choices as hard as those Abraham, Moses, and David had to make. The main character in the story chose to reject a job that his family needed him to have. They did not understand. The story was unresolved as far as his job was concerned - he didn't get a job. He did, however, know in his heart that he had made the right choice. He bore testimony of the blessings he was receiving in simple terms of building a relationship with the Savior. A much greater blessing than a job.
Next, I took my meds, prayed with my hubby, and spent a few minutes putting together my stuff for the day ahead - namely computer, paperwork, and lesson plans. I had to iron my clothes before I left the house this morning because I realized when I looked in the mirror that they looked a little like I was wearing a used grocery bag. Got on the road by 7:35 but since the drive to work takes about 45 minutes on a good day I was 5 minutes late today. That's okay, at least I didn't have any early morning meetings this morning. By 8:25 I was already deep in conversation with another teacher about a student who has been having a particularly difficult time.
At 8:50 my students started trickling in for their check-in. Jeff always waits in the office for me (names are all changed) because he gets into too much trouble if he is in line with his class. He came in this morning and informed me that there are way too many days left of school before summer break and couldn't we please cut out some of those. Before I could respond to that Paul, and David came in from the bus. Paul wanted to be allowed to go line up with his class and could he PLEASE just be given another chance. So I gave Paul a pass. David, on the other hand had tried to run away from his classroom no less than 5 times on Monday so he and I needed to have a conference. He has a helper who comes in to keep track of him but the helper has been someone different every day now for 3 days because we haven't been able to hire a permanent person yet so I needed to introduce him to today's "helper" and review the plan for the day so it would go better than yesterday. Bob and Don came in next. They just got their charts and went on their merry way. David and his helper were still debating about where to go next. Jill and Anna came in with their helper to have their faces washed, teeth brushed, and hair combed. By 9:10 my room was blessedly empty and basically quiet (I'm across the hall from the gym - how quiet could it be)
9:20 Today I taught social skills with a group of first and second graders. I walked around to each of their classrooms and picked them up and took them to my little classroom. We talked about "What bugs you about school?" and "What can you do about it?" David and his helper attended this lesson. All was well David stayed for the next lesson as well.
9:40 Picked up 4 kids for a reading lesson. One of them needs to work on math instead. We read about Polly the parrot and learned about number arrays as a means to counting in one to one correspondence. David did well and earned a play break.
10:10 I dismissed 3 kids to go back to their classrooms. David did not want to end his play break but after some serious putzing did. I picked up the next group of kids and David went back to his classroom. By 10:15 David was back kicking and flailing. We got him settled into an activity and I attempted to teach the next group how to read. I have to say that Anna did pretty well considering that David spent 15 out of our 30 minutes together being seriously oppositional. But, eventually he settled down, David finished an "apology of action" and we made a deal that he could go back to his classroom . . . if.
10:40 I had a conference with David's case manager. By the time I got back to my room at 11:00 David was in the principal's office having been "escorted" there after kicking his teacher and running down the hallway trying to get away from his helper. (Gusty sigh . . .) The decision was made at that point that David would spend the rest of the day in my room and his case manager's room after I leave the building.
11:10 My fifth grade math students came in for their lesson (fractions oh joy!) I really enjoyed their lesson. David was given some spelling to work on but he jumped up and grabbed a book off the shelf spending the next 30 minutes looking at that instead of doing the spelling. As the fifth graders were leaving the school social worker came in to invite David to his lunchtime friendship group. I was sorry to have to tell her that David was not ready to come to this group until he had finished his work. David finished the assigned work in 10 minutes... hmmm. Then he went off to his friendship group with his lunch. He seemed to do well during the group and worked quietly when he came back to me while I answered numerous e-mails and tried to work on an IEP. The paraprofessional (i.e. helper) came back for David at 12:20 and I packed up and managed to get out the door by 12:30. Since my lunch started at 12:10 this wasn't really good news. I ate potato chips and diet soda in my car on the way to my other school, arriving at just in time to have a meeting with the special ed team and the tech people regarding accommodations for special ed students while taking the MAP tests this week and next.
1:30 5th grade reading
2:15 4th grade writing
2:45 5th grade writing
3:15 5th grade social skills - We played "What would you do" I taught this lesson in the classroom to the whole class. Everyone recorded something that someone else had done that really bugs them, wadded the paper up and threw it into the middle of the circle, and then we all picked up a new one. Then we opened the papers up and took turns reading the "problems" and talking about it. My student, Adam, is autistic so many of the "problems" that came up were things he does that he is not aware are offending (really bugging) his classmates. We had a chance to answer the 3 big questions for choosing a course of action. One, is it a big deal? Two, can I handle it on my own? Who can I go to for help?
3:35 Dismissal. I checked in with my 4th graders. All was well.
3:45 I wrote 2 PLEPS (Present levels of progress) for students I teach, and worked on an IEP that is due on Friday. Then I started this blog entry. When the custodian poked his head in to clean the room I looked up and realized it was 5:30.
I packed up all my gear and headed for home, stopping on the way at the gym for a quick torment session, and arrived at home shortly before 7:00 PM
Then I had dinner (seriously hungry after having potato chips and pop for lunch), cleaned up the kitchen, studied my seminary lessons and finally finished up this blog entry. It is 20 minutes to 9 and I am SO ready to put on my jammies and veg in front of the tv until I fall asleep but I still need to see if I can get that IEP a little further on its way. I probably should have been doing that instead of writing this but I have to believe this could be more important in the big picture. Now I have a record of an average day in the life of... Jan, grandma, Ms. O - whatever.