The last few days have been stressful, well, maybe just Thursday was stressful for me. It was not a good morning for me at all. I was subbing for another friend of mine at Garfield ES and it was first grade. I guess I should've expected this but at the same time, I wasn't expecting it so here goes the story...
This friend of mine has an EXTREMELY intricate routine for her children in the morning and every routine is governed by what song is playing on the CD player. These children are so trained and conditioned that if ANYTHING goes out of order, they have such a big hissy fit! Well, I was walking into a warzone...her instructions were so detailed that I really didn't have time to read all the way through them and get a good comprehension of what was to happen. So then the bell rings....
Everything seems to start off fine but then the bickering started the minute I messed up....geez!!!!!! I tried to diffuse the situation by saying that it's okay if something doesn't happen exactly how their teacher does it. That didn't help. I started reading the job board and a word on the board started them up again and it was mainly one girl that had the biggest mouth. I said that I was just reading what was up there and just get over it! That didn't shut them up either. ...gosh!!! I got so frustrated and I felt myself getting emotional from the stress of them yelling at me and then arguing with each other. There was a special ed. assistant in there watching the whole thing and that probably was one reason I was getting really frustrated because it was kinda embarrassing to have her in there watching the kids eat me alive. She finally piped in and told the kids to hush up because I was the teacher in the room and they should listen to me instead of arguing. Did that help? Nope. I finally couldn't hold my emotion in any longer and asked the special ed assistant to stay in there while I went out to collect myself and to find another teacher to go in there and get control of the little idiots. I found my friend, Karen, and she went into the room and yelled at them and said that I was her friend and that she didn't appreciate them making me upset and she yelled at the main instigator and she started crying and Karen asked her how did she like it if people yelled at her? Of course, the girl didn't like it. I collected myself and cooled down as best as I could and went back in and the room was silent. I walked to the desk and the kids said quietly that they were sorry. Since they are first graders, it doesn't hurt to show a little emotion to them to show them that their actions have consequences. It's not wise to get that way all the time, but with students this young, they feel instantly bad if somebody they see as an authority figure break down, they know they did something wrong and bad. The rest of the day went smoother but after all that, I was still wondering, "do I EVER want to sub for that teacher again????" I guess the next time probably won't be as bad because the kids would know me and might feel a little more comfortable with me but still. That's a lot of stress for one morning! I don't mind subbing for Karen's class because she usually doesn't have such a stringent routine for her kids. She's more random so they're more forgiving for something different (within reason...ha)! Routine is good for young children but at the same time, if it's TOO structured, it makes the kids slaves to that routine and makes it really hard for change.
Today wasn't so bad because I decided to take a shorter sub job (3 hours). Granted, it's not as much pay, but I needed to work with as little stress as I could after yesterday. I was able to leave at 12:30 and I went straight home because I had some chores that needed to be done...lots of dishes, lots of dirty laundry....avalanches of stuff! It was okay though...it was quite liberating and relaxing. (I don't feel that way all the time) :)
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