A dose of reality

   What is there that can be said about the first week of my first year of teaching? What words can express my life over the course of this week? I'm not sure if I know. When I started the week, I had so many hopes and expectations for how the classroom would function, what the kids would be able to do, how I would be perceived by them and their parents. To say that my hopes and dreams have been completely shattered would not be entirely accurate, but lets just say I've been given a pretty sharp dose of reality.

    My week began Monday, and by the end of the day I'd already lost one of my kids. The mother was furious. It turned out the office confused her with somebody else and shipped her over to a neighboring elementary school. I thought I would have a heart attack.

    Our school has taken on kids from three neighboring elementary schools. We weren't ready to take on so many kids. We only have one water fountain in our section of the building that works, and it trickles out so slowly that the kids have to suck at the fountain in order to get anything to drink. The school did not have any idea how many kids would show up in our classrooms, so they shuffled kids in and out and all over the building until our numbers settled down. They told us to expect anywhere from 28 to 40 kids per classroom. In the first three days of school, I had on average about 30 kinders in my room with no assistant and never the same group of kids for more than two hours at a time.  

    The amount of kicking, punching, screaming, cursing, fighting, and everything else that you could imagine that goes on, its a miracle that I could do anything with my kids this week. Going into week 2, I literally have no clue where to begin.
from August 26, 2012