my keys. I had been called a month in advance to be told that I was going to be placed in a science room, but when I walked into my room I found out it was still a science classroom. 
Nothing had been taken out. I had a loud and huge fish tank, my cabinets were still full of science books, and the back cabinets were still full lab equipment. I was totally upset! One of the new science teachers came in and helped me move out the science books and clear out the closet. By mid-afternoon my classroom was somewhat put together. I still had all of the lab equipment and the fish tank, but it was still a work in progress.After my training, I had my first meeting with all of the staff members. Come to find out, the teacher who was in my classroom before still taught at the school!!! After the meeting I approached the principal with the fact that I had gone through her stuff. I was informed to collect everything of her’s and make it available. The bad thing is that I had thrown some of it away…thinking the teacher had left it there. The teacher…Mrs. S came into the office pissed off (understandably). I informed her that I wasn’t told the teacher hadn’t been moved out. She informed me “I wasn’t going to move my classroom in the summer.” I went and gathered all of her stuff together that I could and went to help my supervisor. When I came back she had torn down the bulletin board decorations above the chalk board and it looked terrible. The paper and boarders had been thrown in the trash. If she didn’t want the boarders all she had to do was leave it alone. Now I had to add something new to my list of things to be done. I was furious. This we coming from a woman that was close to twice my age! I understand she was pissed off at me, but I wasn’t informed that she hadn’t moved her stuff.
That afternoon my supervisor found an empty classroom and asked the principal if I could move my classroom to this new room. She agreed and so the next morning I spent the day moving my room including my stuff, math books, and the desks (with the help of the custodians). I didn’t like the two-seater desks that the classroom had. Remind you, this is on a Friday…before classes started the next Monday. It had been the 8th grade math classroom and it too had lots of stuff left in it from the teacher previous (and she wasn’t coming back). The desk was still full of stuff and all I could do was shake my head and curse under my breath as I put it everything in its place.
My new classroom is pretty big. I have a full wall of chalk boards but they are hard to get to with the cabinets that are installed beneath the boards. The other wall is full of bulletin boards that were covered in cartoonish material. That has been replaced with something nice and somewhat subtle. I’ve gotten complements on them a few times. The first couple weeks of class I had a class of 45 kids and without a good cooling system it get very warm. After the second week that class was reduced to 25. It was a nice change since they turned out to be one of my best classes behavior wise.
It is now week 6 and I am stressed out. I have been coving my a$! by making my phone calls home to inform parents of their kids grades. I am having problems getting the kids to turn in their work. There is also a lack of respect for their elders. They like to talk back and refuse to do what you ask them to do. I know that if were to do something like that and my dad heard about it, I would have gotten a spanking of a lifetime. These kids don’t care. There are older teachers and staff that tell me “When I taught this worked for me.” I don’t think they understand the difference between kids then and now. I’m going to stick with my phone calls. I know that I am getting a good response from parents when I do keep them informed….whether it be good or bad news. Lately it’s a lot of bad news. It’s their grade and behavior and not mine.
Is it Christmas yet?
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