August 10, 1999
Today went really well. I did a lot of teaching. In the morning I worked with P while the others did spelling. It was hard to keep him on task.
It took me a minute to remember who this kid is. And now I realize I am thinking of another kid with the same name from the school where I taught Spanish. (He pooped in his pants on the first day of Kindergarten, and the teacher and her aide had spent the whole day dealing with him so by the time I got there after lunch, and I said, “Okay, come to the carpet!”, they started running all over the room. They had done no procedures. This is how I know I will never teach kindergarten; even though most of them go to pre-school, they don’t know anything about how school works, and I’m not going to be the one to teach that to them.) Okay, I think I remember him now, maybe he was an inclusion experiment? Because I remember him going to another room, and that eventually he just stayed in that room all day. Anyway…
He was really tired and had been hit in the eye and I was worried about a concussion so I asked Mrs. J and we sent him to the nurse. I felt bad but she said he does that all the time, and then I felt really bad like I was sending him away because I didn’t know what to do with him. But I was genuinely concerned – it looked painful!
This was the first of many, many times I sent a kid to the nurse because I think something is not right. Apparently I have higher expectations than most school nurses (must be my doctor’s office Mother) because the kids always come back. The nurse at this school even told my mentor that I sent too many kids to see her. Then figure out what’s wrong with them and fix it!
I got to do the graphing lesson today. Last night for “homework”
I wrote their names on a graph, and today we found out how many brothers and sisters each one had. I was a little flustered because I didn’t know I was doing it until 5 minutes before, but it went well. Somehow I wasn’t clear on how to fill in the graph because I had to explain it individually to a few different kids.
If I knew then what I know now… Institutrice, it’s not you – it’s them. Make a few kids repeat the directions before you let them start working, and then if a few don’t understand what to do, make them think about it or ask another kid. They’ll remember real quick.
I don’t remember what I said – or didn’t say – to fix it tho! Everyone did really well. They asked me how many brothers and sisters I have, and made me write it on the board. As soon as my name was up there, they were all calling, “Miss Institutrice, Miss Institutrice!” instead of, “Teacher, Teacher!”
Thank God, because I hate that. A lot of people say it’s a sign of respect when they kids call you “Teacher” or “Miss”, but I think it’s rude. I have a name, so use it. (Appropriately – not like on my playground grafitti. 
We got a new student today named AZ. He is really bright.
Not really. He’s a punk.
He went through the 75 most common words and the spelling words like they were nothing. The counting he did good on but he needed some strategies for adding and subtracting.
My Data Analysis started early!
During math we did a division problem and he wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t able to explain it without showing him exactly how to use the cubes so I asked Mrs. J to help. She got him to do it, that was good for me to see how she did that. :-)
Which was? LOL
I can’t get over how my handwriting is exactly the same, just smaller and neater. (And therefore much more readable.) It cracks me up that I was already using some of the abbreviations that I use now, and thought I had picked up more recently than 1999!
