As you know, the beginning of this school year has been difficult. Not having a room of my own has been stressful. Every 24 hours the location of where I would be starting the year changed. My class was placed in about 5 or 6 locations before the start of the year. It was finally decided that I would start the year in the art room, the art teacher would do art on a cart for the beginning of the year. The other third grade teachers weren’t in much of a better position. Two were in normal classrooms, one is in the music room (we have music in a basket), and another is in the library, with the books still in it (we have library in a suitcase). It has been rough on all the third grade and specials teacher. My situation was exacerbated by the fact that I was unable to get into my classroom until an hour before open house. That doesn’t leave much room for getting the classroom prepared for parents and students.
The first week went well. This class is going to be a good one if they can manage to stop talking long enough to listen to what I am trying to get across to them. This year is notable because this is the first year that I haven’t had a student that is a major behavior problem requiring a separate IEP Behavior management plan. I have to admit, that it is nice to not worry about a particular student blowing up and going ballistic because someone looked at them the wrong way. I do have several other students that have IEPs for learning or physical issues and I’m sure that I will have one or two students that will qualify for admittance into the gifted program, one that I imagine is very high on that scale. The class comes with a unique set of very diverse issues. So far the class is very easy going and accepting of all these differences. I hope that throughout the year I can help them understand that it is important to not only be accepting of such difference but to be helpful to those in community around them. I think we can get there.
Every year I have a tough time of starting back at page one with a new class. One can get used a class that is trained and more independent. Going back to a classroom of twenty-five third graders who can’t decide which new pencil they should use before each assignment and asks me very loudly without raising a hand a normally beginning the statement with “Mr. W!” One can learn to hate ones name under such circumstances.
Despite the difficulties that our staff has faced we have been able to smile through the whole experience. We have received numerous e-mails from teachers in the other elementary buildings offering their help in anyway. It truly has made this whole experience bearable. During the Superintendent’s state of the school address, he was reviewing the construction progress made at each of the elementary school buildings (or lack of as is the case at my building) he came to my building and I braced for him to white wash over the issues making it sound like everything was okay. Thankfully he didn’t do that. He commented that the new from my building wasn’t quite the other building and in his PowerPoint he had a picture of several of the third grade teachers standing in the library/classroom and said that what make Wyman special is the people. He noted that many of the teachers in my building came to work on their rooms well before their contract began so they could have their rooms finished so that they could help those teachers who didn’t have a room to start working on. He hit the nail on the head with that observation and I am so thankful for the wonderful folks that I work with.
Today my mom came up today to work in my new room to help me get ready. She got my classroom library in order, put up some bulletin boards and cleaned the students desks. The new classroom is actually starting to look pretty good. The latest news is that my class might actually move into the new room as early as Monday.
The start has been rough but we will make it and then hopefully I can start blogging regularly then and possibly getting the podcast up and running. We have recorded episode six but it is unedited.
Thank you again, my online friends for your understanding.
Class dismissed!
