As playoff baseball is getting underway and the weather is cooling down, I realized that we are now entering the fall season. As I look at the calander and see the month of October, it is frightening how time flies. In fact, I have been in Philadelphia for almost 4 months! From the first day I walked onto the campus at Penn until now, I have seen and experienced many new adventures. This week in particular has been my craziest adventure yet.
Last weekend I had the privalege of attending a wedding in the Chicago area. It was a blast and I got to hang out with some of the finest people from the 717 (Carlisle Zip). On Monday when I was sitting in the airport for four hours waiting for my flight back to Philly, I was grading papers and thinking about how I could get better at this whole inner-city teaching thing.
I devised a plan where I would go over all of the rules and expectations again and make sure everyone was on the same page. On Tuesday, I walked into class with a new excitement for the changes I was hoping to see. As I presented all of the new rules, many of my students were having an "Oh yeah, I remember those" moment. However, some of my students who play by their own rules said, "Fu#% Rules" At this point, I had to have another conversation on the meaning of respect and what type of language is appropriate in a school setting. Once everything was cleared up and I had written my detention slips, the day went very smoothly. Children were quiet and listening and I think I may have seen some learning going on.
On Wednesday, I went outside into the school yard to meet my kids and bring them upstairs. As I walked out of the door, I saw a group of 50 kids by the fence yelling and screaming. It turns out one of my students was fighting a parent of another student. Another teacher and I jumped in and restrained the girl. The mother and the 8th grade girl continued to yell back and forth even as we were moving the girl inside. I took a healthy elbow in the chest from my student but I chose not to tell people because I didn't want anyone to know that I got jacked by a 13 year old girl. It turns out that this was a "carryover" fight from somthing the night before but it was a crazy way to start the morning. Once I got into the classroom, everyone was concerned about our students who was fighting and it was hard to get everyone focused. However, after an hour or so everyone settled down.
On Thursday, my students were all model students. They heard a talk from the counselor about how they needed letters of recommendations from their teachers, so I think everyone was trying to "suck up" a little bit. However, I am not going to complain because we got a lot accomplished and students were activly engaged in my lesson.
On Friday , I had anther day that rivaled Wednesday. One of my fellow middle school teachers was absent so this meant that some poor, clueless substitute had to fill in and babysit. It was about 10:30 in the morning when I heard a loud noise coming from the 7th grade room. I ran over to see what was going on. The substitute was standing helpless in the back of the room as girls were yelling back and forth. I asked the sub if he was fine. In a Eastern European accent he said, "It's like a zoo with wild animals." Less than 10 seconds after he finished his thought, one of the girls picked up a chair and threated to hit another girl with it. I ran over to grab the chair from her and as I placed it back on the ground, the girls began to fight. I jumped in the middle of the fight, but the girls didn't seem to want to stop. As I stood there trying to separate the girls, I began to count the number of midsection punches and slaps that I took. Turns out that it was close to 7. Luckily for me, this was a 12 year old girl fight, so there wasn't a lot of power packed in the punches. I finally got the girls to stop and as I was walking the girl down to the office all of the other girls were mad because this one particular girl got to "hold my hand" as we walked to the office. I was really escorting her by holding her wrist, but the other girls wished they were walking alone with Mr. Bushey. Not sure why, but I tend to be a popular figure to the 6th-8th grade females. Sometimes it's a little creepy, but they tend to listen to me!
Alright well I have things to get done! Hope everything is going well with each and every one of you! As you can tell, my life is a roller coaster filled with ups and downs! I'll try to write as much as possible so you can experience the ride with me.
Good things and Much Love,
Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment