The Teacher Quit

Kitchen and whatever 538Read the last three posts first if you have not seen them.

She quit this morning. Another teacher in the building took the class for the day. I continued to act as a one-on-one aide. I did volunteer to teach the class tomorrow if needed. I still don’t feel quite ready to take over early elementary school classrooms. That job’s a lot harder than it looks and my expertise starts around the age of twelve. I will step into the breach briefly, though. I do know the kids and the routine. I would be teacher number three.

Class was much more peaceful today. Academics were replaced with more playtime, even if that play involved a lot of numbers and letters. Fewer hard transitions happened, too. If a boy wanted to keep doing what he was doing, we let that go. We had a few different activities going at the same time. We played with bubbles. We read books. We took physical activity breaks.

We had Freddie moments, but the screaming was minimal and the violence nonexistent. Separating the boys helps enormously. Letting them play more helps. They benefit from high levels of physical activity, I am sure.

One more day tomorrow and then I will attempt to pull my many speculations together. I expect I will end up giving real kudos to the Principal whose attempt to keep the ship running smoothly almost worked. She’s great in a crisis.