Rengerain - Renge & Rain - Tumblr Blog

I’m Trying...

Class Rules

 1.      Stay quiet.

2.      Look at the teacher.

3.      Listen to the teacher.

4.      Stay in your seat.

5.      Answer questions.

  Prizes

 1.      One good day gets you one sticker.

2.      A whole week of stickers gets you a small prize.

3.      A whole month of stickers gets you a bigger prize.

  Punishments

 1.      Verbal warning and no sticker.

2.      Five minutes off of recess.

3.      A call home.

  Signals

 1.      Finger to lips – Quiet!

2.      Teacher points to eye – Look at teacher.

3.      Teacher touches ear – Listen to teacher.

4.      Push down with palm – Sit.

5.      Hand up – Raise your hand to answer.

6.      X with arms – STOP!

Depressed Again...

Depression hits hard

What if it never leaves me

Will I be trapped here?

Depression...

It’s hard to keep your head above the water when you’re drowning in your own tears...  Take that, former me who wrote horrible Goth poetry! 

I hope he’s lying...

I sometimes wonder what parents are thinking when they shroud their children in ignorance…

Are they protecting themselves from having to explain the virus?

Are they bamboozled into thinking that there is no pandemic?

They vaccinate their son against the flu yet he has no idea what ‘corona’ or ‘covid-19’ is…

What does he think of these masks then?  A sudden fashion trend?

At least he wasn’t told it was all an elaborate hoax…

Hug...?

Hug hug hug hug hug

You’re my favorite teacher

No, no please don’t leave!

Distracted...

I have a tight schedule that has grown even tighter…

There is no wiggle room…

So I find it where I can…

Last night I found too much, got too into it, and forgot to post…

Oops.

Weird Kid...

Strange kid, why like me

I’m a weird, childless spinster

Nobody likes me.

Nothing ever changes...

Bureaucracy is a tumor on society’s ass that will never go away…

Government…fueled by greed and money…one of the worst necessary evils…

All I wanted from Biden was student loan forgiveness for my admittedly incomplete education.  Did I get my diploma?  Yes.

Did I graduate feeling confident and ready?  No.

My student teaching was interrupted by Corona.

This may not seem like such a big thing to you…

But when you have anxiety and are faced with a new experience, a new challenge, a new career…  It is terrifying to feel ill prepared.

Teaching well behaved adults who want to learn English is one thing but teaching children who are a million times more hyper, sociable, and sneaky than you are is an entirely different matter.  I am happy to say that I am finally on the right track to becoming a teacher…hopefully a GOOD teacher.  But at the same time, I am very disheartened that it took so long and I had to jump through so many rings of fire to do so.  You’d think that someone at some point in the educational food chain would know how to organize things better…streamline the process.  Make things easier.

No.

First I get told that I need to have three different certifications…

Then I’m told that the school district that just hired me needs me to do yet another background check…

I’m working in the same State!  Why do I need to get another background check when I just got one done last month?!

Looking up...

Breakthrough finally

Happiness can be real now

I have a new job.

Certification Pending...

This is such a depressing thing to see when you have studied for what essentially amounts to three months straight.

Sadly, I only have myself to blame considering I let my background check slip. Now I have to get in touch with people to have my work email unlocked.

It has been a long and winding road already…

No one at grad school said anything about additional certification…

The program was geared towards preparing student to teach adults, not kids.

Then again, when I asked the ‘teaching career’ guru if I should get certified in general education or special education…she said ‘no’.

Do yourself a favor, if you are going to specialize in ESL, special education, or any other area…go for additional certification in general education. There are more special education jobs than there are ESL (in my State, anyway) and there is WAY more general education jobs than there are both ESL and special education combined.

Get it while you are still in college!

It will open up three times as many doors for you!

Start in general education, get that experience, then work towards the subject or kinds of students you actually want to teach.

Get your foot in the door!

Tired...

No energy

Still rather depressed at times

Creativity.

Oops!

Background check needed before certification can go through…

Guess what I forgot to do during winter break?

Yup.

So my K-6 general education certification is pending until the background check I had done last week is cleared.

This, sadly, has cost me a couple of job opportunities…

But hey, as long as parents continue to act worse than their children in my state, I should be in a position in no time!  Seriously.  ‘I can’t stand to see my kid in my mask’ is just code for ‘I’m tired of hearing my kid whine about masks and I don’t want to wear one myself so here I am protesting my family’s right to get terminally ill.

The fact that America ever made it to become a first-world country much less a world power is still a mystery to me…

I love my country but I hate the spineless, cowardly, selfish, greedy people who run it.

Background Check...

I passed both Praxises

Yet I am so forgetful…

My brain has a fog.

Okay, I am Mad…

As a teacher, my discipline is lacking…

So long as the students respect each other and do their work I’m fine with some of their shenanigans.

But

I

Do

Not

Tolerate

Bullying

Unfortunately, I failed one of my students…figuratively, not literally…

She has an IEP…

She struggles in math…

Theory says that I should pair her with a more capable student…

Theory neglects to say that I should make sure that the ‘capable’ student will HELP her instead of insulting her intelligence to her face.

She has been a no-show at summer school for a full week…

Gee, I wonder why…

The only time this was brought to my attention was when my ‘capable’ student insulted her intelligence in front of the whole class…

She hasn’t been back since, and no, she’s not on vacation.

Now, I am a new teacher so if there’s a ‘sixth sense’ that one develops after years of practice I have yet to develop it.

I am also VERY hard on myself.

I feel as though I have neglected to protect and empower her…

I can only hope that things improve for her as she repeats 3rd grade next year…

I’m so sorry sweetheart…

Depression Battle...

Depression falling.

After so many weeks of pain…

I feel at peace now.

Tenth Classroom...

It is Summer School and too hot for a self-proclaimed lava monster to find much joy in taking her small class out for recess.

I have a mixture of English Language Learners, General education, and Special education.

Three of my students have unmediated ADHD…

I’m beginning to see myself in a whole new light…

I must have been an annoying kid to wind up on such strong ADHD meds by the time I graduated high school…

My third grade teacher apparently couldn’t put up with me being a disorganized mess.  She kept begging my parents to up my dose even though my grades were A’s and B’s.

There were no ADHD experts in our area…so I get to learn this now as an adult.

I’m in my thirties and I am often mistaken for my twenties…both in physical appearance and in my mannerisms…

How embarrassing…

Summer School...

Summer school starts now.

I already adore kids.

Mischievous ones.

Late Post...

So sorry…

I missed my post deadline…

I was in a lot of pain yesterday.

Anyway, I really must look up how to run Tumblr automatically.

But for now, I still have a praxis to study for…

And it’s making me so anxious that I am making myself ill…

It always happens…

My stomach is killing me and I can’t eat or drink certain things without making it worse.

Like dairy, anything spicy, caffeine, sugar, citrus, etc.

Half of my normal eating habits are now off limits.

And I get to endure a full week of this since the test is next Saturday…

Joy…

Dark Cloud...

Depression hurts, man.

Some days I just don’t want to…

Breathe deep and enjoy.

Oh Dear...

“Give me your phone number!”

It does not seem to matter to her that she is six and I am…not.

Yes, I started my teaching journey rather late…

Secretarial work just wasn’t cutting it anymore…

Again, it didn’t matter to her that I am several years older…

I am the ‘fun’ teacher…the ‘nice’ teacher…the ‘pretty’ teacher.

What I lack in classroom management (since this is my first year), I make up for in enthusiasm, kindness, creativity, subject knowledge, and yes…fun.

This was not fun…

I had to leave a note with her ‘every day teacher’ that little girl insisted that I give her my cell phone number.

I did not, for the record…

I am weird and admittedly a little immature, not predatory!

Infatuation...

You’re really pretty

Pretty without glasses on

You are pretty too!

I’m a magpie...

You can become a child’s hero in surprising ways…

While I was waiting for names to be called at Parent Pick up, a little boy named Dell dropped the shiny silver bead he had found.

He became really upset…  

It was going to be yet another surprise gift for his mom!  Dell usually tends to pick her (and his teachers) flowers and draw pictures full of hearts.  So when he lost his bead Dell began to panic and crawl around on the floor.

I make beaded jewelry for fun…

It took me 3 seconds to find what he was looking for.  I picked it up and gave it to him…

I got the biggest smile…

And since that day, I’ve gotten a couple of hugs as well…

Erase the stigma and ignore inaccurate depictions in the media.  I’ve said it a couple of times now.

The sweetest boys have Autism!

Ow, my Brain...

Oh no, not another

Praxis test to suffer through

Sorry about this.

Talk to Them...

“I hate it here.  School is too hard.  The playground is different from the one in Pennsylvania.  I don’t like Delaware.  I don’t like living with my grandpa.  I want to live with my mom and dad but they have to fix the house so we can go back.  My brother and sister and I moved down here.  My baby-baby sister is with mom and dad.  I want to go home.”

This ramble is brought to you by a displaced boy in first grade.

Sometimes you just have to listen and not just shove a lesson down their throat.

Not long after this, I sat with him again.  We worked on his reading, which is something he hates.  He still hated Delaware.  He still missed his mom and dad.  But he was more willing to participate and work with me.  He didn’t act up or whine.

Sometimes a chat can make a world of difference.

Even if the effects only lasts two weeks before he goes back to Pennsylvania…