School Days....

So Monday I was geared up to arrive early in order to teach one extra class.  The designated class was 5th grade, which is good because they're behind!  Fortunately, I had remembered that Monday morning at 8 was Honores and I wouldn't start until closer to 8:30.  I still arrived before then, but I was prepared to not be walking right into class and getting down to business.

My classes were good.  Partially because Anabel wasn't there, so I didn't have my hellion class of first graders.  First grade is truly the least of my worries since they are on track or ahead of schedule.  My other first grade class were their typical angelic selves.  Third grade was very receptive.  Sixth grade was fun and since Martha was in charge of the bell, we got almost a full 40 minutes.  It's amazing what you can accomplish when you have almost the amount of time you're supposed to have with a class (I usually have about 20-25 minutes with 6th grade.  Bless their hearts.)!

At recreo, however, Sandra asked me if I knew about the testing.  Of course not.  I had heard mention last week of the bimestrales (the bimonthly exams), but I figured I'd try to still teach on those days.  Other schools don't cancel their specials classes just because of the exams, so I thought I would try that approach.  Turns out that these exams are special.  Our teachers would be going to another school on Wednesday and teachers from that school would be going to our school to evaluate each other's students.  I'm assuming this is for validity?  At any rate, after the tests, students would be dismissed at 11.  Even if I could have come for classes after the tests, they were dismissing early.  On Thursday, all the teachers (not city wide because many of my colleagues were working) who had administered tests would congregate at a designated site to grade all the exams.  No students would be at school on Thursday.

Awesome.

My new mantra is "Make every moment count."  This year has been a living example of that in my life, but now it is a professional mantra.  I have to make it count because only God knows when I'll see my students again!