Angela, where have you been?

I haven't been blogging much lately. But never fret! More posts are on their way. By way of explanation, I've been sick all week AND working too hard. In case you've missed the drama of life lately, here's a bit of what's been going on:

When I arrived in London on January 13th (five weeks ago), and had my interview with my agency the following day (a Friday), I was intending to do Supply work here for the remainder of the school year (which is akin to TOCing in Canada, or "subbing" for the non-teacher readers).

However.

The first working week I was given a "temporary" posting for the week. It was a Year 1 class of 30 kids (which is standard here - be ever-so-thankful for smaller class sizes, Canada!). I quickly realized they were going to be a handful, but heck, I could survive anything for a week, right?

Five weeks later, I have not yet seen the inside of another classroom. The teacher I'm covering for has had a respiratory infection, and every single week she thinks she just needs "one more" week off before her doctor gives her the go-ahead to go back to work. So every single week I just put my head down and barrel through another week of struggle with this class. And every single Friday, the Head comes in and asks me to stay for "just one more week." A few weeks ago, I committed to the school, my agency, the parents, the kids and myself that I would stay however long it took for the teacher to return. I was already the third Supply the class had had, and I didn't want them to have to deal with another transition. So I was in it. I was committed.

But I never really had any idea how I would feel at the end of it all.

Before I left Canada, everyone warned me that "the kids are bad in England." In response, I repeated my feelings that "kids aren't bad, but the way they are managed can be." Since I've only been in this one class, I still can't really comment on "the kids in England" (my scope is still too small to do so fairly). But what I CAN comment on is the 30 kids I've gotten to know quite well.

There are about 5 that are ... challenging (see what I did there? that's the polite Canadian TOC in me).  Three are just attention-seeking and need some training about appropriate behaviour at school. If I was going to be with this class long-term, I feel confident (thanks in large part to Cindy Brown) I could work with them to improve their behaviour and (as a result) be able to teach them and the rest of the class in a much better and more productive way.

One doesn't speak English, so he thinks he can get away with being silly (and sometimes downright mean) because he "can't understand me." He's a very sweet and cute little guy, though, and I have a soft spot in my heart for him. When I first got here, he spoke VERY limited English and could not string two words together to form a sentence. Asking to go to the bathroom was a simple word, "Toilet?" Fast forward five weeks, and he now says, "Excuse me, can I go to the toilet?" This is a huge language leap for him, and I'm so proud. Last week, I had the kids survey each other about their favourite colours. With this little guy, I walked around with him, modeling what he was supposed to do and pointing to the kids' names on the sheet so he could record their answers. After a few kids, he got the idea and started asking "Colour?" With every few kids or so, his question evolved to "Favourite colour?" then "What's your favourite colour?" then "Alex, what's your favourite colour?" and finally (with PERFECT pronunciation and diction) "What's your favourite colour, Ramon?" (he even moved the words around in the sentence!). I nearly cried I was so proud!

The last... well I'm at a bit of a loss about him. He needs help. He needs one-on-one support. He's not handling himself well in the classroom, at playtime, or at any time really. I've done everything I've been trained to do to support and help him. But he needs coping strategies that I am not prepared to teach him. I feel for this kid, because I see the sweet and funny child in him. But his anger takes control of him too often and he's not getting the support he needs to be successful. I hate that we see this situation all too often. In a perfect world, there would be endless money available so that kids like him could get the attention and support he needs. I fear for his future success in the school system and in life, and I pray he works it all out and gets it together. For now, though, he takes an inordinate amount of my energy and attention and pulls me away from the other 29 kids in my class way too often. This is exhausting for me and unfair to the rest of the class!

Apart from these five little monkeys, and a few others that act up and are too chatty, and the one that has a possible Dyslexia problem, and a few that are unable to recognize their letters and sounds let alone write a story (which my top kids are doing wonderfully), I have a pretty wonderful little group. They are undisciplined and noisy, but I've been told by several teachers that they are "way better with me than they were before." I feel so good knowing that I've made some kind of difference. A few of the parents have approached me this week to thank me for staying through the transition and for doing a good job with the kids. Apparently they talk about me at home :)

Five weeks ago, I would have said I was more than happy to give this class back to their teacher. But now, I don't really want to let them go. I would be happy to keep them through the end of the year. If I knew I was going to have them long-term, I would feel free to make even more changes to the structure of the classroom and the strategies I use with the difficult ones. I could really turn this class around and have fun doing it.

And knowing where I was going the next day was nice too. I have to admit, I'm not really looking forward to the Supply game, now that I've been away from it for so long. So...we'll see how that goes.

Add to these daily challenges the fact that I was asked to provide Reading, Writing and Maths targets for all 30 kids this week, PLUS the fact that I got sick and the cold lasted all week due to the overworking and lack of sleep... and you can see the reason for the lack of blogging :)

Besides, blogging isn't something I feel any pressure to do regularly. Right from the start, I warned that it would be irregular and random. I blog when I feel like it and when I have something worth "musing" about, not because I feel like I owe anyone another post. As soon as I start to feel pressure to do it, I'll stop it altogether.

Hope you are all doing well. I've moved past the Honeymoon stage of moving to another city, and I'm starting to miss my friends and family back home. I love you all... drop me a line when you feel like it and let me know what's going on in YOUR lives!