Parents are you okay? Do we need to chat?

[cornerofmadness]

Explain to me why you are sending me your 10 year olds armed with frakking Starbuck's coffee? Because sugar and caffeine is exactly what a 10 year old needs to start their day (that said my grandmother used to give me coffee and dad confirmed his breakfasts were coffee and toast).

I was lucky. The biggest troublemaker wasn't here today. The second biggest (the twins) were pretty calm today as a result. The other big troublemaker was extra today. If tomorrow wasn't the last day, I'd have my boss chat with his mom because several girls were complaining about it and he wasn't listening to me on his phone (which he has been the whole time) but today he was disrupting and showing videos to others.

I'm not used to standing for 6 straight hours. My legs/feet are so swollen I have +1 pitting edema. That means you can press in the swelling and the fingerprint stays there. Tomorrow the compression hose have to go on.

My big Owl House romance was pretty well received so far so I'm happy.

My students told me there was a fatal accident by the school. I didn't hear that (but apparently the 10 year olds did)


My secretary asked me if I had tried the new Pho place in Jackson. Never even knew there was one. Must find it now.

I'm too tired to find communities today.

Comments

[sylvanwitch]

Your posts about STEAM camp keep me harkening back to my earlier teaching incarnations--first as a playground aide at 18, then as a playground and afterschool care supervisor at 24/25, and also my one-year stint teaching 6th grade Catholic CCD as a volunteer. Hands down the most challenging in every case were the pre-teens. Generally, the younger kids could be distracted and/or cowed into submission, so to speak, but some of the pre-teens were long on attitude (and burgeoning hormones) and short on interest in listening to authority, namely me or any of my staff, in the case of my supervisor job. So to say that I empathize with what you've been experiencing is to understate egregiously, and I can ONLY imagine how much more challenging my jobs would have been if my students had had cell phones. You have ALL my empathy, my friend. May you survive today intact and then NEVER do this again! Lol!

[cornerofmadness]

You have my sympathy too for that past. They are insane but at least it's over.

Would I do this next year? The boss has realized the error of her ways and promised a different format. She suggested 2 hours and that's it (but is it 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon?) so maybe? Or request week 2 with the 9-12 graders

[sylvanwitch]

My regular job is teaching 11th and 12th graders, so I can attest to that age group being more mature and usually easier to keep interested, engaged, and/or seated. That said, my experience with 9th and 10th graders lately (read: post-covid) has been that they can be, to quote a colleague, absolutely "feral" in their behavior, having lost some vital link in socialization/behavior development during the lockdown year(s). Still, I'd hope that with older students in a summer program, there'd be a much higher ratio of kids who actually want to be there as opposed to being dumped off by parents looking for "educational" childcare in the summer.

[cornerofmadness]

Ah I did not know that. Those grades would be the only ones I'd want to teach in the k-12 system.

Feral is a good word for it.

Yeah maybe next time I'll opt for the older ones. I didn't plan to be here this week at the time. foolish me

[aien_hime]

What? 10yo with coffee? I can't imagine they even like that!

[cornerofmadness]

Insane, that's how 10 year olds are with sugary coffee

[under_the_silk_tree]

I see kids at my youngest's elementary school with Starbucks coffee in the morning all the time. I don't understand it also how do they afford to do it every day? Starbucks is expensive!

I hope today was at least a little bit better. Is Friday your last day or does it go on to next week?

[cornerofmadness]

Right? We have no starbucks here (though I probably called it that) but we have coffee shops just as $$$$ I would not be buying my 10 year old a 5$ coffee every day.

It is going on this week with the 7-12 crowd but I'm not doig it