Picture of the board outside my classroom.
The class made the letters in art and we made the dinosaurs in our Hand Program with our OT. You can also see a standing frame and 2 kaye walkers used by some of my students.
I'll shift the yellow to the E on Monday.
Haven't stopped thinking about work all weekend. Have got 2 PowerPoint books almost ready to be printed and put together, a ton of ideas and stuff loaded onto the work laptop ready to get to work when I find a spare minute.
Had a weepy and stressed week. Not a fan of feeling like that. The colleagues I am most comfortable with emotionally Dolly and the temp next door had me in tears before 9 o'clock on Friday. I just managed to hold it together through the day and then they had me in tears again at the pub (I don't want to recount the conversation there, it wasn't helpful and I am not sure how much of it to believe. I need practical solutions not to be told I shouldn't have been put in the situation). I ended up giving the temp a lift home and we talked and talked until 3am! At least compared to the start of my day my shoulder wasn't crunching every time I moved it (that's where I hold most of my tension). Got lots of great ideas and things I want to try.
Saturday I ended up on the phone to a mate, who has also just started teaching this year, for 3 hours... What did we learn? That despite me teaching 6 year olds in special ed and her teaching math science at a secondary school it is the same sh*t in different buckets. The problem appears to be that teaching is a challenge and we are both used to an easy ride. Life has been good to us and we have cruised along feeling confident and competent at school, work, uni - nothing too hard. Teaching is hard. We need time to grow into it, years longer than either of us has the patience to contemplate. Perhaps we are not getting all the help that would be ideal, but we are learning as we go the hard way. We are at different life stages to our colleagues. We feel isolated and unsure of the politics, machinations, loyalties of the people around us. We will both be exploring our options at the end of this year. We are both trying to teach our kids to put their hands up and listen to each other- looks like that is a never ending chore of teaching.
I feel like I have a better perspective on teaching and my place in the experience of it now. I hope this feeling lasts me at least this week with PSG meetings for the preps, reports needing to be done and a visit from Snow White's teacher and integration aide from her other school.
I don't consider myself a poet but I really liked this post over at An Identity of One's Own.
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