I finally got a seat once we passed downtown. I enjoyed my last 15 minutes of my ride. When I got to school, Hernan (chatty/helpful custodian) told me that Maribel (enlace) was there. She had brought more books and was there to collect more money from me. Since she had been there since 8, she had collected enough money for 5 other books. We went over our list, and luckily this time it only took 3 times checking it to come out balanced! She will return tomorrow with the books, but needless to say, I didn't get my copies made, nor will I have much time for that tomorrow.
Before she left, we discussed my educational materials in Guadalajara. It's about 8 hours away I think. Another overnight bus. I looked online at flights, thinking I could make a weekend out of it. Online, the price says $250 pesos. That comes to $25 USD each way. I was all about it! So I went on with the reservation. With all the taxes and fees, the total becomes $260 USD roundtrip. I changed my mind quickly. Maribel told me she thought we could find a cheap bus (UGH) or possibly even a free bus since a friend of hers is a bus driver. She said people go to Guadalajara every weekend to buy things there to sell here and that it should be easy to find a bus.
It was almost 8:50 when Maribel left, so I went to get my copies for 2nd grade. A teacher was using the copier, so I waited (mind you, her students were in her classroom unattended). Then I made my copies and went back to the Teachers' room to get the CD player, lesson plans, etc.
And enter Hernan...
He started up some conversation about the boxes in Guadalajara and about buses and planes and on and on and did I want to see a show on the computer. He is so chatty, and since today had not started as I planned, and I was tired to begin with, you can imagine how I felt listening to him talk about nothing! He is definitely helpful, thoughtful, nice. But he is also very chatty, and I am beginning to wonder what his job requirements are since it seems to be to talk to me as much as possible, and occasionally check his email or watch videos on the computer... I'll get back to you on that one!
Not to mention, I think he called me a whiner. I don't remember the word he used, but it was in the context of the bus to Guadalajara and how at this point I'd almost rather pay the $200 to go to Guadalajara and be there in an hour than pay $10 and be there tomorrow.
Since I was late getting my copies, and then held up by Hernan, I got to second grade about 20 minutes late. The thing I love about Lockeland, is that I have my own classroom. What comes with this is that it's rarely my fault if I don't have the whole time with a class. I am in my room, teaching the 30 minutes, and the students are lined up ready to go when their teachers get there. If the teachers are late, the next class enters late, but that is the fault of the previous class's teacher. I can't get caught up talking in the office or lounge because I'm not there. This is one of the issues I now face. How do I leave one class, prepared for the next, on time and arrive at the next without an interruption of a mom or custodian or principal or other teacher.
Second grade should've ended at 9:40, but I gave them 10 more minutes since I was late to split the difference with 4th grade. As I'm changing out my CDs, books, and supplies for 4th grade, I receive the note from the principal that we'll have a meeting at 10, give the students some work to do. The work comes from the classroom teacher, so I didn't have to do anything. Going to 4th grade in time to open their books and then have the classroom teacher give them work to do seemed like silly idea, so I waited for the meeting. Why the meeting couldn't happen during recreo? Well, that's the teachers' time, of course!
15 minutes into the meeting, there were knocks on the door every ten seconds with a whiny "maestra." The students would come reporting a misbehaving student or asking when recreo would be.
The meeting was to discuss the upcoming changes to the school. Apparently our principal is ticked about the whole situation because there are three bodies at work in the change, and no two seem to be on the same page. He wanted to get the opinions of all the teachers and report back to the authorities as well as tell us that we should voice our opinions when the authorities are at our school. Well, this girl will be keeping her mouth shut, but it was neat seeing the intense opinions. No one wanted the longer day, including the principal. We'll see what happens... The other thing we discussed was uniforms: cost, size, embroidery. These shirts are $18, which I think is a bit steep (relatively speaking of course!), but I plan on buying one.
I proceeded to 5th grade after recreo and had a hilarious class reviewing clothes. I would pull out a shirt from my backpack and put it on my head asking if that's where a shirt goes. Of course not, so they would tell me where. Mind you, body parts are not a part of this unit...I'm just that good. Actually, let's be honest here. I'm still working with classes where only 50% have the book, so I'm improvising with as much independent work as possible. I put on a skirt on top of my skirt, a sock on with my flip flop and a sneaker (the book's word choice, not mine) on the other foot. I had a cap and a shirt on over the shirt I had. I decided not to go ahead with the jeans as the zipping up part could've been a bit, shall we say awkward?
But the students absolutely loved it. I told them not to tell their parents that their English teacher changes clothes in their classroom! Their writing project combined knowing body parts and clothing with singular and verbs. Their sentences looked like this:
The __________ go/goes on your ____________. I was pretty proud of them!
No comments:
Post a Comment