Frustration Rising

Oh boy.  I was getting so used to pleasant elementary school experiences until this week.  Yesterday's kids were a pain and today's 2nd graders were even worse.  To top it all off, the teacher left instructions but there were spelling and grammar errors all over the page and it was difficult to understand.  Blargh.

I could tell it was going to be a rough day from the start.  I think 90% of the kids in this particular classroom have ADHD.  Especially two of the boys.  They clearly have a rough time sitting and being quiet and they feed off of each other and get worse and worse.  J was at least apologetic about his behavior (he made me an "I'm Sorry" snowflake) but N was just a pain in my you-know-what.  All day long they talked over me, got out of their seats and bothered other students, refused to do their work, and generally caused distractions.

Even without those two the class was disrespectful.  I can't tell you how many times I told them to quiet down.  It took clapping to get their attention (they have to repeat the rhythm that I clap) and after listening to instructions they would go back to doing whatever it was I told them to stop doing.  Ridiculous.  Just like yesterday I tried everything and nothing worked.  A reading aide came in right before lunch and she normally just takes a few kids aside and works on comprehension with them but today she offered to read to the whole class.  Thank goodness.  I was just about to give up on them all.  She talked to me a bit and said that this particular group is always noisy and has an extremely short attention span.

I hated doing it but I had to leave a bad note for the teacher. I gave her a list of the misbehaving students and apologized for the state of the classroom.  I tried to get the kids to clean up and put their folders away but to no avail.  The room wasn't so clean when I left (although I did pick up as much as I could).

Not a good day, and that is twice in a row now.  I hope I get better students tomorrow.

On a side note: After school I joined my new job and helped lead a program (teaching hibernation).  The group was pretty scattered but the teacher, my new boss, said I did an excellent job managing the group.  I hope so!  I'm getting plenty of practice when I substitute and thankfully it is paying off.  I'm better at dealing with problem children and managing rowdy groups.