Tumultuous Tuesday

What a crazy day this is turning out to be! I’m so glad tomorrow is a half-day. I couldn’t take another day like this one! Started out fine, but then it came time for my first computer class. I walked into the lab and the class was already there. The teacher said, “Sorry, we needed the extra typing time today.”

Not a big deal. Except it’s not her whole class - just a small group. She has her class divided up into groups and they are writing reports on different regions of the country. She had one member of each group come to the lab.

Their group task is to write a 5 paragraph essay about their region. Again, no big deal, but she has them trained to use their own disks to save documents. This time, however, she has each group member typing a different paragraph. What she didn’t explain to them was that their individual paragraphs are a part of a whole essay. They should have all been using the same disk. She assumed that we all knew that. Remember, they were already here when I got here.

Her students were rotating in and out of here until 9:00. When she came back to say time was up, she reprimanded them for typing their paragraphs separately. I tried to come to the students’ defense and tell her they were doing what she had trained them to do. She said they should have figured out that all of the paragraphs belonged to the same essay. I still think she was wrong to reprimand them. They’re kids. When you drill it into their heads to do something a certain way and then all of the sudden change the rules, they’re bound to make mistakes. Humans are creatures of habit, especially little humans.

(Deep breath)

Once that class was gone, the Kindergarten class showed up. Normally, I get a group of 10 to 14 out of the class of 21. I’m supposed to have 2 pretty equal groups but the teacher is taking forever figuring out their reading levels so she can divide them up. Anyway, today there’s a sub in the class so I got 18 kids at once. I wasn’t panicked until they started acting helpless. They had me literally running in circles because they “forgot” how to open and close their programs. I had to keep telling myself not to get impatient because they are, after all, only 5 yrs old and I didn’t want to start sounding like the other teacher.

Now it’s 9:45. Only two classes into my day and I’m ready to go home. Haha

My next class is science with the 2nd graders. Wish me luck!