"same old, same old"
I don't mean that in the "my life is so boring" way (even though sometimes I want to RUN FAR FAR AWAY FROM HERE BECAUSE I AM SO VERY VERY VERY BORED WITH MY SOCIAL LIFE BUT IT'S OKAY I'LL SURVIVE RIGHT TELL ME I WILL SURVIVE PLEASE OKAY THANK YOU).
I mean it in the way that when someone asks me how my day was, my current response is literally always "SIGH. Same old, same old." Not "Oh, fine." Or "OH MY GOD GUESS WHAT RIDICULOUS THING HAPPENED TODAY." Just same old, same old. Like, okay, the same frustrating behaviors happen every day, sometimes the kids handle it better, sometimes I handle it better, sometimes I have zero patience and just lose my cool and think WHAT THE EFF AM I DOING HERE and sometimes I take a really calm breath and say "Let's think about our choices here." Sometimes I blame the students, sometimes I blame their environment, sometimes I blame the school, sometimes I blame myself. But all in all, it's really just the same old same old most days for this teacher. It's actually really scary. It's scary to me how some things that happen down here don't even surprise me anymore. I find myself getting pulled into them and actually becoming part of the things that I used to hate. It FREAKS ME OUT. A lot of days I'm not the teacher I've always wanted to be. I used to pride myself on how PATIENT I was. I am (was) literally SO patient (unless I'm throwing a fit, but usually that doesn't happen anymore now that I'm, oh, you know, 22 years old and a professional adult). Like at my old job, and in all of my nannying jobs, I was SO good at maintaining composure, never letting kids actions or words get under my skin. Even student teaching. I NEVER raised my voice (why would I when desist strategies are SO much more effective?...). Now I feel like some days all I do is scream. My voice legitimately hurts like almost all the time. And I can't believe I fell into that. AND I LET SIX YEAR OLD BEHAVIORS AFFECT ME PERSONALLY. I would give anything to have someone in the room watching me just to say "Hannah, look at yourself. He's six. Let it go." Or to pull ME into the hall the way I pull my students into the hall and just ream me out for being a BI***. A REAL GIANT B WORD.
So I have this whole positive behavior system, right? Where I give them hole punches on their cards when they have good behavior and if they have 20 punches on Friday they can go in my prize box. Well for the past two weeks I haven't been doing it. I got sick of it, I felt like they didn't deserve hole punches so then nobody got 20 hole punches (except my angel child who I SWEAR is a 30 year old trapped in a 7 year old's body).....for the last two weeks I HAVE WANTED TO HOP A PLANE AND GET OUT OF HERE. I LOST IT last week. I was SO DONE. I would literally just turn the lights off and make them put their heads down because I couldn't deal with the behavior anymore and I wanted to be done teaching. WHAT? My student teaching supervisor would not be saying her classic line "That's just good teaching" if she could see me now. NO WAY.
(sidebar: when I say "behavior problems" picture this:: a student is running wild around the room, hopping off of desks, bouncing my beach ball globe off of other students' heads, stealing my scissors and walking around pretending to stab other kids, humping the floor and making sexual noises while laughing and trying to get everyone else to laugh, punching my SMARTboard, smashing my computer, ripping things off the walls, ripping other students' papers, yelling cuss words, yelling "I don't care what you do my daddy's gonna shoot everybody up in here anyways" and ETC.....while the other 16 students continue their work, ignoring the behavior and "brushing it off" like I taught them because they know not to react to the negative behavior)
(sidebar sidebar: it depends on the day and the mood and the time and the lighting in the room and the color of my shirt which student will be doing which of these things)
So last week every time something like that happened I would lose my cool. Ignoring it wasn't working, and I didn't have the patience to ignore as long as I needed to, so I got nasty. HOW DOES SOMEONE GET NASTY WITH A CHILD. It's a culture thing down here and I totally got sucked into it. WHY DID I LET MYSELF DO THAT. I KNOW BETTER. I went to an EXCELLENT college and got an INCREDIBLE education and have a GREAT degree from a state with AMAZING education. And I come down here and get totally sucked into the negativity that I've always hated. WHAT THE HECK.
In addition to this, I've been in this stupid sinking depression where all I do is watch "Bones" (my current netflix obsession) and sleep and drink my juicer drinks. I feel like my social life is totally stagnant here. Like I am living in the middle of nowhere with a total of like 10 people my age within two hundred miles, living in a house of teachers who are always stressed out, with pretty much zero money, running away from the delta every weekend because I am a city girl who doesn't know how to survive in a rural location. And my friends are at home going out in uptown, seeing my parents, going to weddings and being yuppies and working out at LA Fitness. (Okay let's be real if I were home I'd still be working out at the YMCA with my parents so I guess I can't really consider that part of the problem.)
BUT ANYWAYS hating my life+no positive behavior system+being in the Mississippi Delta for too long and needing to be in MN=ONE VERY UNHAPPY CRANKY CRANKY IMPATIENT TEACHER.
So this week I took a deep breath and realized I need to restart my system, my mentality, my attitude, everything. I brought back the punch cards and vowed not to yell. I vowed to be patient, and have conversations with them (you know, like a good teacher, like I used to do...before I got sucked into this). And now I feel like an idiot. Because Monday was flawless. Not a single behavior problem. And today was nearly flawless. Only one very minor behavior problem. I didn't yell, my voice doesn't hurt. I don't feel annoyed, I don't feel mad. I feel appreciative. I feel appreciative that my little J (who punched me in week two, fell asleep on my lap at the football game in week three, and stole my heart by week four) slapped someone today and then started crying when I hugged him and told him "I love you, but I'm disappointed because I expect you to make better choices than that." (after pouting "NO NO NO" as I was asking him "Was that a good choice? Do you feel happy that you slapped her? Do you like the consequences?" ---SO HARD TO TAKE HIS ADORABLE FACE SERIOUSLY). And I'm appreciative that I can look at my students when someone is acting up and they all know to put their hands on their shoulders and make the "brush it off" motion and get back to work. And I appreciate my teaching team who say "It's written all over her face" and force me to stop pitying myself when I get flustered because the kids deserve better. And I'm appreciative that my students are brilliant and I get to do these awesome challenging writing lessons with them.
And I'm appreciative for my education. And my friends. And my family. And for living in Mississippi because it has shown me, first of all, that I belong in a city, but has also helped me to understand what really matters to me (being surrounded by people I love, investing in relationships I care about, and doing things to help myself grow and improve as a person).
And I'm an idiot for letting all of that slip past me long enough to sink into this stupid negative attitude. When I first started my education degree, I remember reading this quote and thinking "man, that's so true." Okay, Ms. Forster, ya dingbat. So far with my experience, this is pretty much the only thing I know to be 100% accurate when it comes to teaching. Here it is:
DUH HANNAH. DUH. So here's to this week, getting my act together, taking deep breaths, appreciating the unique individuals that I get to spend every day with, and shining positivity all over the place. AMENNN TO THAT, AMIRIGHT? (also thanskgiving break in THREE DAYS when I can finally get the heck out of here and to civilization--TEXAS HERE I COMMMMMMEE) :)
I don't mean that in the "my life is so boring" way (even though sometimes I want to RUN FAR FAR AWAY FROM HERE BECAUSE I AM SO VERY VERY VERY BORED WITH MY SOCIAL LIFE BUT IT'S OKAY I'LL SURVIVE RIGHT TELL ME I WILL SURVIVE PLEASE OKAY THANK YOU).
I mean it in the way that when someone asks me how my day was, my current response is literally always "SIGH. Same old, same old." Not "Oh, fine." Or "OH MY GOD GUESS WHAT RIDICULOUS THING HAPPENED TODAY." Just same old, same old. Like, okay, the same frustrating behaviors happen every day, sometimes the kids handle it better, sometimes I handle it better, sometimes I have zero patience and just lose my cool and think WHAT THE EFF AM I DOING HERE and sometimes I take a really calm breath and say "Let's think about our choices here." Sometimes I blame the students, sometimes I blame their environment, sometimes I blame the school, sometimes I blame myself. But all in all, it's really just the same old same old most days for this teacher. It's actually really scary. It's scary to me how some things that happen down here don't even surprise me anymore. I find myself getting pulled into them and actually becoming part of the things that I used to hate. It FREAKS ME OUT. A lot of days I'm not the teacher I've always wanted to be. I used to pride myself on how PATIENT I was. I am (was) literally SO patient (unless I'm throwing a fit, but usually that doesn't happen anymore now that I'm, oh, you know, 22 years old and a professional adult). Like at my old job, and in all of my nannying jobs, I was SO good at maintaining composure, never letting kids actions or words get under my skin. Even student teaching. I NEVER raised my voice (why would I when desist strategies are SO much more effective?...). Now I feel like some days all I do is scream. My voice legitimately hurts like almost all the time. And I can't believe I fell into that. AND I LET SIX YEAR OLD BEHAVIORS AFFECT ME PERSONALLY. I would give anything to have someone in the room watching me just to say "Hannah, look at yourself. He's six. Let it go." Or to pull ME into the hall the way I pull my students into the hall and just ream me out for being a BI***. A REAL GIANT B WORD.
So I have this whole positive behavior system, right? Where I give them hole punches on their cards when they have good behavior and if they have 20 punches on Friday they can go in my prize box. Well for the past two weeks I haven't been doing it. I got sick of it, I felt like they didn't deserve hole punches so then nobody got 20 hole punches (except my angel child who I SWEAR is a 30 year old trapped in a 7 year old's body).....for the last two weeks I HAVE WANTED TO HOP A PLANE AND GET OUT OF HERE. I LOST IT last week. I was SO DONE. I would literally just turn the lights off and make them put their heads down because I couldn't deal with the behavior anymore and I wanted to be done teaching. WHAT? My student teaching supervisor would not be saying her classic line "That's just good teaching" if she could see me now. NO WAY.
(sidebar: when I say "behavior problems" picture this:: a student is running wild around the room, hopping off of desks, bouncing my beach ball globe off of other students' heads, stealing my scissors and walking around pretending to stab other kids, humping the floor and making sexual noises while laughing and trying to get everyone else to laugh, punching my SMARTboard, smashing my computer, ripping things off the walls, ripping other students' papers, yelling cuss words, yelling "I don't care what you do my daddy's gonna shoot everybody up in here anyways" and ETC.....while the other 16 students continue their work, ignoring the behavior and "brushing it off" like I taught them because they know not to react to the negative behavior)
(sidebar sidebar: it depends on the day and the mood and the time and the lighting in the room and the color of my shirt which student will be doing which of these things)
So last week every time something like that happened I would lose my cool. Ignoring it wasn't working, and I didn't have the patience to ignore as long as I needed to, so I got nasty. HOW DOES SOMEONE GET NASTY WITH A CHILD. It's a culture thing down here and I totally got sucked into it. WHY DID I LET MYSELF DO THAT. I KNOW BETTER. I went to an EXCELLENT college and got an INCREDIBLE education and have a GREAT degree from a state with AMAZING education. And I come down here and get totally sucked into the negativity that I've always hated. WHAT THE HECK.
In addition to this, I've been in this stupid sinking depression where all I do is watch "Bones" (my current netflix obsession) and sleep and drink my juicer drinks. I feel like my social life is totally stagnant here. Like I am living in the middle of nowhere with a total of like 10 people my age within two hundred miles, living in a house of teachers who are always stressed out, with pretty much zero money, running away from the delta every weekend because I am a city girl who doesn't know how to survive in a rural location. And my friends are at home going out in uptown, seeing my parents, going to weddings and being yuppies and working out at LA Fitness. (Okay let's be real if I were home I'd still be working out at the YMCA with my parents so I guess I can't really consider that part of the problem.)
BUT ANYWAYS hating my life+no positive behavior system+being in the Mississippi Delta for too long and needing to be in MN=ONE VERY UNHAPPY CRANKY CRANKY IMPATIENT TEACHER.
So this week I took a deep breath and realized I need to restart my system, my mentality, my attitude, everything. I brought back the punch cards and vowed not to yell. I vowed to be patient, and have conversations with them (you know, like a good teacher, like I used to do...before I got sucked into this). And now I feel like an idiot. Because Monday was flawless. Not a single behavior problem. And today was nearly flawless. Only one very minor behavior problem. I didn't yell, my voice doesn't hurt. I don't feel annoyed, I don't feel mad. I feel appreciative. I feel appreciative that my little J (who punched me in week two, fell asleep on my lap at the football game in week three, and stole my heart by week four) slapped someone today and then started crying when I hugged him and told him "I love you, but I'm disappointed because I expect you to make better choices than that." (after pouting "NO NO NO" as I was asking him "Was that a good choice? Do you feel happy that you slapped her? Do you like the consequences?" ---SO HARD TO TAKE HIS ADORABLE FACE SERIOUSLY). And I'm appreciative that I can look at my students when someone is acting up and they all know to put their hands on their shoulders and make the "brush it off" motion and get back to work. And I appreciate my teaching team who say "It's written all over her face" and force me to stop pitying myself when I get flustered because the kids deserve better. And I'm appreciative that my students are brilliant and I get to do these awesome challenging writing lessons with them.
And I'm appreciative for my education. And my friends. And my family. And for living in Mississippi because it has shown me, first of all, that I belong in a city, but has also helped me to understand what really matters to me (being surrounded by people I love, investing in relationships I care about, and doing things to help myself grow and improve as a person).
And I'm an idiot for letting all of that slip past me long enough to sink into this stupid negative attitude. When I first started my education degree, I remember reading this quote and thinking "man, that's so true." Okay, Ms. Forster, ya dingbat. So far with my experience, this is pretty much the only thing I know to be 100% accurate when it comes to teaching. Here it is:
“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
DUH HANNAH. DUH. So here's to this week, getting my act together, taking deep breaths, appreciating the unique individuals that I get to spend every day with, and shining positivity all over the place. AMENNN TO THAT, AMIRIGHT? (also thanskgiving break in THREE DAYS when I can finally get the heck out of here and to civilization--TEXAS HERE I COMMMMMMEE) :)
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