Okay Okay.  Enough harassment.  I have been really busy.  Really.  

It all started with a phone call on April 18th.  The temp agency called me to tell me I have been requested for a long term sub job for the rest of the year.  I of course accepted, excited for the wonderful opportunity and much needed stability.  Then she told me the story behind my position.  The teacher had a heart attack and died.  In.  The.  Classroom.  Despite what local news reports said, the students are the ones who found him.  This teacher dropped them off at Art, then went back to the class.  When he never went back to pick them up, the art teacher sent them back to the classroom.  They walked in and their teacher was dead on the floor.  Imagine my shock.  Now image the shock of 23 nine year olds.  I am not walking into a happy situation.  I am walking into a classroom with 23 traumatized children.  

I put on my big girl panties and headed into the classroom.  The principal introduces me and tells the kids I will be taking over for the rest of the year.  The whole day, there are teachers, counselors, and parents hovering outside of the door waiting on a breakdown from students.  None happened.  I was blown away at their resilience.  The teacher had died the day before, and these kids were more interested in me then grieving over the loss of their teacher that had been with them for the previous seven months.

All that aside, I have walked into a disaster.  As brilliant as the man was, he was an unorganized disaster.  There wasn’t a single file on any of the 23 students.  He had stacks of papers in drawers.  There were no files set up.  There were no lesson plans.  There was nothing to tell me where he left off or what he already covered.  Understandable though, it isn’t like he knew he wasn’t going to be finishing the school year.  Regardless, you would think I would have support of the other teachers.  Nope.  None of them co-plan, therefore no one knows what the other is doing.  Excellent.  Within two weeks, I had my label maker (courtesy of the Brunette BFF) and my files, and I had organized the hell out of that classroom.  Other teachers have been shocked at how fast and how awesome the class looks.  Not to mention, I feel like I can breath again.  Oh wait.  Just kidding.

Those of you that really know me, know there is a bit of Type A/OCDness to me (minus my warranty drawer).  I like order, ESPECIALLY in a place of work.  I need order, I need a plan, I need cleanliness.  I de-germed my classroom with my bottle of bleach (hidden from the school since “go-green” has forbidden any good cleaning products).  I scrubbed the desks, chairs, and any other surface I could get my little hands on.  The kids were shocked at how white their desks could get.  Okay aside from this end of the classroom we have the other, more terrifying end.  

Lesson planning.

All of my training, observation, and student teaching was for Middle School English/Language Arts.  I am certified 4-8th grade.  These are 4th graders.  Now I am thrown into a position that I teach: English, Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies, Geography, and any other subject you choose to throw in there.  Let me remind you, the reason I passed my college math with flying colors is because the Chief was sitting next to me when I did all the work.  Let me also remind you that I found out two years ago that Alaska wasn’t an island.  Now. You. Want. Me. To. Teach. Math. AND. Geography.  Excellent.  Maybe, I am not ready for this.  Believe it or not, I love it.  I love it so much.  I have never been so excited to get up and go to work every day.

One of the reasons my focus was on Middle School, is because that is what I wanted to teach.  I didn’t want to be with 4th and 5th graders.  I thought they were too needy.  I knew they were still touchy-feely and I had no desire to be a babysitter.  I went to school to teach, and in my mind I could only do that with pre-teens.  Or so I thought.  I LOVE my kids.  I love greeting their happy little faces every morning.  I love it when they run up to me and wrap their little arms around me.  As I hug them back I remind myself that it may be the only hug they get all day.  I am in a poverty stricken area.  100% (not an exaggeration) of the students are on FREE lunch plans.  Seventy percent of my students are African American and the other 29 percent are Hispanic.  I have one Caucasian student in my class.  These kids have my hearts in their hands.  They have so much love to give.  What was I thinking when I said forth grade would just be babysitting?  In no way am I babysitting!  These kids have to be taught!  And when they don’t get it, they come in before and after school.  I am teaching.  I am FINALLY doing what I worked so hard to be able to do.  And I love it.  I freaking love it.  I love everything about it.  I love spending a week teaching them to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators.  Then I LOVE seeing that all but two of them passed the test with flying colors.  I love seeing their little faces when they see that I have taped their tests to the board for the whole class to see.  They are proud of themselves and they are so happy to see how proud I am.  I had 6-8 students in my class every morning before school, doing tutoring.  These kids wanted to understand.  They have never had their work taped to the board.  They have never had that silly little sticker attached to their “A”.  One student told me that the last teacher never let them come in before and after school for help.  She also told me they never got stickers.  

I love my job.  I love my kids.  I love each and every one of their precious little faces.  I couldn’t be happier.  Or busier.  

Forgive me, I have finally started to breath again and get a hold of this teaching thing.  I will try to blog more, in the meantime know that my time is going to something more important.   :)