Day 60: 1/11/12
I can't believe I'm 60 days here! What have I been doing?!
I got a call around 6 this morning. At least when you get it that early you have time to sort yourself out! It was for the same school as tomorrow but a different class- both year 6 though. There was a bus going that brought me straight to the school but it took about forty minutes.
The teacher didn't seem to have any work left. There were a few bits and pieces around but nothing you could really use. The teacher next door came in and got a few bits for me. He also told me that they are a pretty bad class. They had a sub on Monday aswell and they called her a b**** to her face. He said you usually see subs running out the door at home time and you don't see them again!! So that was great news!!
There were 16 in the class, about 5th class age. There were only six girls who wee very chatty and full of attitude- refused to read, ignored me when I asked them to put things away, hatted amongst themselves, passed notes! Some of the boys were lovely- about 5 of them. The rest had a lot to say and liked walking around the classroom, taking each others pencil cases, throwing paper at each other, passing notes, going out for drinks and talking, talking, talking!
The other teacher had given me a reading text based on a debate. They have been working on debates and were supposed to pick out different language structures- rebuttals and arguments and stuff! They were supposed to pick out evaluative phrases and formal phrases........ I had the answers and still didn't know for sure what they were doing!! I need to brush up on my English structures! Needless to say they had no interest in that! We abandoned it for a while and spoke about Halloween and what they do in Ireland and Australia. Only a few of them had gone trick-or-treating and they hadn't played any games or had parties or anything. They had heard of bobbing for apples. They were very interested in the bairin breac and I told them about the game with the saucers and two girls played I with just sheets of paper at break time.
Then we had Maths where some of the other class were swapped with ours. There was one very bold lad altogether from the other class- as if we weren't bad enough! The worksheet the teacher gave me required them to measure angles using a protactor. I wanted them to be as accurate as possible but it turned out they were drawn badly on the worksheet so they didn't work out- note confusion!! The principal and the vice principal popped in during the morning to see how things were going as they had gotten so out of hand on Monday. The were bold enough alright- the fact that I didn't know too much about the lessons didn't help!
After break I got them writing discussing proverbs, thinking of examples and writing a story to explain the meaning of one. This they worked okay at, apart from passing notes. The vice principal came in twice. One lad hadn't bothered to do anything in between. I had warned him and he still continually messed so he got to spend the next break with the vice principal! I didn't let them get away with anything!
They were better again after the second break- at each break they were a little better. It was like they had slowly given up on chancing their arm! I totally winged it for the last hour- I taught them some Irish, I played the tin whistle for them, I taught them some Irish songs. They were chatty enough but they seemed to like it. Nobody can near me this time but I did send one lad to the office as he kept messing- same lad the vice principal spoke to earlier- he had a good day! I had some puzzles aswell that they had to figure out and they got them. They gave me a handmade card at the end of the day saying that they thought I had done well and they hoped I'd be back! After all their messing they were quite sweet! Despite a disaster of a morning, I think the day went well!
After school I had to correct their stories. Also, the other teacher showed me what ill be doing tomorrow. He's not too pushed about what they do but he says that class is even worse than be one I had today! I only have to teach them until first break though and then they have sport for the rest of the day. I have to go to it and he says it gets a big crazy but I don't mind that. It's nice to know the day before what's ahead of me anyway, even if it is a tough one!!
It took a while to get back home again and I was wrecked by the time I got there. I watched some programmes on the laptop and got some stuff ready for tomorrow. Bed early tonight I think! The teacher said there's a lot of s***s in the class so I better get ready for them! It wasn't a very nice thing to say! Also, I've been told in every school I've gone to that certain pupils are low and they won't do much work so don't worry about them! Surely they'll never learn if that's the way they deal with them! Maybe it's just for my benefit?!