"the worst class in the school"

I have finally gotten a call from my favourite school. It's the one I volunteered at before teacher's college, and it's super multicultural, which I really love. So I'm pumped. I arrive sufficiently early, and someone who I don't know, but who turns out to be the vice-principal, takes me to my classroom. It's the one I volunteered in. Perfect! I tell her how thrilled I am to be here, and how much I love this school, and how she should call me any time. She explains that she's looking for "regulars" and is thrilled to meet me. Amazing! The day is off to a wonderful start. She pauses for a moment. "Now, I know you'll be fine..." she says gently, "but I just wanted to warn you that this is a really tough class." "Okay..." "So don't hesitate at all to call us if you need any help. We are behind you and will come to support you if you need it. Don't feel bad if you need to call us." I laugh, perhaps a bit nervously. "Okay."

The bell rings and the kids start streaming in. I'm standing outside the classroom happily greeting them, answering some pleasant and some rude "who are you?"s, and just generally psyching myself up for a tough day. Taking it as more of a challenge than as a threat...I can handle it.

"Hi, I'm the principal". She has found me in the hall, and has come to give me the low down. "Oh hi, I'm Rosilee Sherwood." "Hi. I just wanted to warn you that you have a really difficult class." "Oh thanks. I heard that." "So just don't hesitate at all to call us down if you need to. I can sit in your classroom for the whole day if you need me to. We will not look down on you if you call for help. We will look down on you if you come to us at the end of the day and tell us how horrible they were but you didn't ask for help." gulp. "And please send students to the office. I will be really surprised if you don't send anyone to the office. You have to be really firm with them or they'll walk all over you. Okay?". double gulp. "Okay." "I can't punish them tomorrow for something they did today. It doesn't help anyone to write a horrible letter to the teacher telling him about how bad they were but not doing anything about it." "Okay." smile "Okay. Have a good day." smile "Thanks."

I walk into the classroom still optimistic. The overwhelming message is "you can't handle this", and my response is "yes I can". So, the day begins. My first tactic is taking away gym. I hold that over their heads like a piano teetering at the top of a tall building. I put x's on the board, count down from 5, yell a bit, and put more x's on the board. They try to be quiet. They scream at each other to shut-up-or-we're-going-to-miss-gym.

Yes, they were horrible. Yes there were about 20 boys and about 8 girls. Yes they were throwing little bits of eraser at each other all day. Was I overwhelmed? no. Did I break down or lose it in a fit of crying or screaming? no. Did I send several students to the office? yes. Did the principal hear us from down the hall and come and stick her head in the door several times? yes.

It's nutrition break. I'm in the work room cutting something up. The vp walks by. "So how's it going?" she asks me. "Oh fine," I say with a smile. It is going fine. "Well, yeah, they are the worst class in the school" she says. I laugh, "Yeah, I think things are going okay".

Wow. Harsh. The worst class in the school.

It's the end of the day. Gym has come and gone, so there is no longer a threat in that. The next worst thing is to add minutes to the end of the day. I have decided to do a bit of a classroom clean-up to impress the homeroom teacher when he comes back tomorrow (although I wouldn't be surprised if he never came back...). This was not a good idea since it means allowing people to be out of their seats. Things have gotten to the point where kids are standing on chairs, throwing things, yelling and screaming. I am also yelling. The better kids (mostly the girls), have collected a giant heap of bits of eraser from the floor. I have counted down. I have yelled. I am now calling the vp. I say, "I need you to come and sit in the classroom for a bit." "No problem," she says. Students notice that I've called her, and they start getting worried and start to quiet down. They know this is serious. She comes in and starts right into them: She is ashamed that two supply teachers have had to call her to come to the classroom in the last two days. She is upset that as the oldest students in the school they are acting like seven year olds. She is disappointed because she expected more from kids who she knows have a lot of potential. They are quiet. They are not moving. I inform her that they will not be leaving when the bell rings and she agrees. We wait. "You have wasted my time, I will waste your time". Classic.

It's about two weeks later. I'm back to my favourite school, this time in a calm little grade two class. I see one of the students from "the worst class in the school". He remembers my name, and seems thrilled to see me.

Bitter, bitter cold

So it's a ridiculously cold day (okay Kat, not as cold as Thunder Bay...) and everyone is talking about it . The kids are still going out for recess, but not without an inspection by a teacher, checking for proper gear. Everywhere you look people are bundled to the max, shaking their heads saying "Holy crap it's cold out here!". Because it is.

So the day ends and I head to the office to give back my key. I'm all bundled up myself, and try to keep up a bit of conversation with the secretary (because it's always good to be on their good side...).

"Did you have a good day?" she asks pleasantly.

"Oh yeah, they were really good" I respond, as I put on my hat and pull my hood over it. "It sure is a cold one out there," I say.

"Well, this is Canada," she states, sounding a little annoyed. Yikes.

"But at least you're dressed properly," she says, seeming to lighten the mood a little. "But I'd probably wear snow pants". Oookay. Sorry I brought it up. Note to self: do not talk to this secretary about the weather.

It's just funny how some people hate it when people talk about the weather. They think we should be used to it by now. That this is just the way it is and there's no need to mention it...
Well I think they should be used to talking about the weather by now! That's just the way it is in Canada. People talk about the weather. And especially in tropical Southern Ontario - complaining about whatever it is that we happen to be experiencing at the time (cold, hot, rain, snow, hail, sun, cloud...) is just what we do. There's really no need to get all bitter about it.

good old old order

First of all, you should be warned that I will not be posting this often forever. Since I've already had about five months of supply teaching, I've got a bunch of stories saved up. Once they're done, we'll have to wait for more to happen...

Anyways, near the beginning of the school year, I got a call to go to a little school way out in the sticks. Fine. At that point I was taking anything I could get. As it turned out, this school was made up of 50% Old Order Mennonites (not sure if that's supposed to be capitalized, but I think they deserve it). It was totally amazing. Not that I've never seen true blue Mennonites before, but I haven't really interacted with them. Of course all the boys were wearing their straw hats, and all the girls their buns or braids. All the boys were wearing their plaid shirts with black pants and suspenders. Which actually suspend their pants. So regardless of the actual size of the pants, they stayed up, some of them just sort of floating around their bodies. Which makes perfect sense, since they can just grow into them. And of course the girls were wearing their tiny floral print dresses (the dresses aren't tiny, the print is) with pinned on aprons. Which seemed to get used all the time, amazingly, even in school. And they all spoke with an accent of some kind, which I can't quite describe. So much so that at times I couldn't understand what they were saying to me. But it's basically exactly how you would expect these kids to talk.

They happened to be doing presentations that day about themselves. The girls all talked about how much they love animals, because they're adorable and soft and cuddly. And especially how much they adore babies because they're so cute. They actually used the word adore. All of them. And the boys love farming and horses and farm equipment. It was a complete blast from the past, but not. Because they exist right now. It boggles my mind. And sitting in every-other chair, are regular non-Menno kids, wearing their jeans and hoodies, asking questions like, "do you ever wish you could watch tv?" and "have you ever ridden in a car?". Of course. It boggles their minds too.

But the thing that really got me happened during art. I had carefully set out all their supplies during the break, and was just giving some final instructions. I asked if there were any questions and then put them to work finishing up their water-colour paintings. As I'm saying "okay, let's get to work then", I realize that they don't have any paint brushes. Before I can think twice, or even finish my thought in fact, a few girls have already handed out paint brushes to half of the class. I thank them and everyone starts painting.

This might sound pretty unremarkable, and perhaps it is, or perhaps it should be. But to me it's not. To me, these are kids that take initiative. These are kids that see a problem and stand up and do something about it. Which is rare. And I can only imagine that they've had to live this way to get by in their lives at home, with tons of kids, tons of work to be done, and no tolerance for laziness or complaining. If you have a problem, you do something about it. On the other hand, in other classes I've experienced, we have the non-Mennos, who have grown up with one, two, or (gasp!) three kids in the family, where a lot is done for them. They put up their hands and say absolutely ridiculous things like, "my pencil is broken," or "I don't have any paper", when they clearly know what to do about these situations! But they just don't do it. They just aren't self-motivated. So how do you teach that? How do you teach them to be self-motivated? Sigh...