Well - it was about what I expected. Only worse. Due mostly to the fact that the 'real' teacher was absent too! The para.pro (me) was a replacement for the replacement they had yesterday - so there were two of them muddling through the day, on the first day of the week after a long holiday weekend. The actual teacher is out with some (hopefully) minor surgery, and then the para. didn't show up on Tuesday either. So the poor guy who took the job, jumped in blindfolded into water 'way over his depth - was struggling for the second day with a back-up who didn't know any more about the classroom and kids than he did. Sadly, the ones who's names you catch onto first are the problematic ones, often sitting close enough to the teacher's desk to be with arm's reach, for frequent reigning in.
Wrangling Monkeys of the first degree. I've learned to expect that part of the job as an 'aide' will be lunch room duty. And that there are schools in town, where you should go ahead and take the double dose of Tylenol before you walk in the door and sign in for the day.Lunchrooms are chaotic, and noisy. Expect that.
But as someone those kids might not ever see again, I can tolerate most of it fairly well. Mostly by repeating the mantra: it's over at 2:45, it's over at 2:45, it's over at 2:45, etc...
Encountered some girls today who were at Girl Scout Day Camp this summer. When they saw me, it was like Long-Lost-BFF: Pizza! Pizza! So I spent the rest of my forty-five minute stint as Enforcer explaining a dozen times that was my 'camp name', chosen because, as we all know: everyone likes pizza. I have no idea what their names were- but obviously I'm someone they won't forget. Just like I told them this summer, when we were learning how to tie square knots... you will always remember, and you will always remember the person who taught you how.
No comments:
Post a Comment