"Temporary" Venting Thread V

[Mari]

How do you do it?
But I'm glad to read you're happier having read this thread. (somehow I sense a paradox in that)

[katya]

Gah. Kids. It's not so much that they make me angry as that I worry about trying to walk the fine line between being a bitch and being a pushover. It's nicer when they're cooperative. It's worst when all the morning classes are nice and then the last class of the day is horrible and I didn't expect it enough to be really strict right from the beginning.

[GrayMouser]

What's the age group?

[katya]

Primarily high school freshman and sophomores, in this class. Actually, I rarely have trouble with juniors and seniors.

[Mari]

I always start all my classes as bitch and might soften a bit during the course of the lesson, depending on their cooperation and stuff.
Actually, that's not entirely true. It's not so much being a bitch as being my bossy 'you'll do what I want when I want it'-self.

[katya]

I'm gonna have to go back to doing that for a while, Mari. Unless it's a class I already know I can trust. The thing is, a lot of the rules I'm supposed to enforce I think are stupid, so I like to allow a bit of freedom, but they tend to abuse it.

[Tessar]

LOL, yes... the other day my mom was talking to me about how she suspects that when students come up to ask her questions, they are intentionally diverting her attention away from other students who are trying to cheat on tests.

So I told her, "well then talk to them but don't look at them during the tests. Keep looking away at the other students."

To which she replied, "Oh, I couldn't do that. It would send the wrong message..." said while she was looking in the complete opposite direction from me.... She didn't even realize what she was doing.

[The last sane person]

Originally Posted by Tessar

Oh, well in THAT case why mention it at all? Just a light orbital fracture of your skull. No biggy.


*begins building a pillow fort around Sane* aaaaand you may not leave till you are no longer skull fractured.

*peers out of her pillow fort*

Ooh, er, upon re-reading that, I do sound a bit cavalier about head injuries... Heh, I've had so many of them!

Ugh, I have this SPECTACULAR looking black eye and an utterly pathetic story of how I got it. Grr.

I was walking to my truck to get something out of the cab, and my brother was sitting in the truck doing something on his phone; neither he nor I were aware of the other's presence, but the moment I reached to open the door, he also decided to get out of the truck and swung the door open with his usual force.

Result= Ford to the face.

That door was heavy!

So I staggered back a pace or two, thoroughly dazed and holding my eye, which I thought had been knocked clean out, struggling not to swear an oath that would blister stone. Normally I would've been cussing like a sailor, but my kidlett second cousin was in attendance and that little twerp is like a tape recorder. That being, I did let fly a shopping list of regular words in a most angry fashion.

Although, my wee cousin looks very cute when she says "Crackers!!!" now, in mock fury, her mom is giving me the evil eye. It's as if I had said something far less savoury, and was intent on teaching her precious child swear words. Not my fault her kid is a parrot. But it is cute, so to hell with her, if she weren't my cousin I'd give her a good telling off.

..... I just reread this. Bleah, I'm growing soft! Were I a few years younger this would've been from an epic bar fight or street scuffle and I would be a conquering hero and have sent people to the hospital... I'm sad now.

[katya]

Originally Posted by Tessar

LOL, yes... the other day my mom was talking to me about how she suspects that when students come up to ask her questions, they are intentionally diverting her attention away from other students who are trying to cheat on tests.

So I told her, "well then talk to them but don't look at them during the tests. Keep looking away at the other students."

To which she replied, "Oh, I couldn't do that. It would send the wrong message..." said while she was looking in the complete opposite direction from me.... She didn't even realize what she was doing.

Most of the time when someone comes up and asks me something its "Can I go to the restroom?" or "Can I get a drink?" and you know they're gonna be gone for an hour but I can't in good conscious stop someone from going to the bathroom if they have to (and how can you tell if they'll lying?) and I'm also a big supporter of proper hydration! Kids were very nice today though and I feel much better all around.

[Rían]

katya, my daughter says this - if you're not back in 5 minutes, you get a "minor" violation. if you tell the teacher that you're having stomach problems (an excuse to get out of class) then you are sent to the nurse, and she can figure out if you're sick or not.

Also, some other teachers will give kids get a reasonable number of "bathroom passes" to cover those times when you truly don't realize that you have to go until you're in class. They get a reward for un-used passes at the end of the year.

[katya]

I should definitely start paying closer attention to how long they take. Occasionally if there's a student I know might be a problem I'll tell them specifically to be back in 5 minutes. The other thing about giving students a certain number of passes is a great idea too. If only I was a regular teacher! as a sub, sometimes it's hard to know who to look out for and who is trustworthy. The other thing is that classes are an hour an a half long, and there is barely enough time in between to get to your next class, let alone use the restroom. Even at lunch there isn't really enough time. So it's totally understandable for them to want to go during class.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by katya

Primarily high school freshman and sophomores, in this class. Actually, I rarely have trouble with juniors and seniors.

Not quite sure of the American system. High School is Grade 9-10-11-12?
That would be 14-15 year-olds? That's the worst age for me.

I teach some of the same kids for a few years, and a lot of the snotty little know-everythings that drove me crazy have blossomed into actual people you can have intelligent conversations with( Not saying all students that age are the same, of course!)

And I remember the hell we used to give subs....

[Rían]

yeah, being a sub makes it extra hard ... Good luck!

Yes, GM, it's 9-12 now.

[The last sane person]

I sympathize now with most sub teachers, but I will always have fond memories of the various inventive ways we invented while Sub-Sinking. Ah, memories. That and some of them were real jackasses, so I didn't feel bad doing it.

[katya]

Yep, a majority of the other subs are either douche bags, idiots, weirdos, or some combination thereof. I wasn't really bad to subs when I was a kid, I just usually took it as a day I could slack off a bit more than usual.

[Acalewia]

Well, mine and the hubby's anniversary is on Friday. We both asked off of work for that day. I was allowed a 3 day weekend. Hubby was not even allowed that Friday. He told them it was his anniversary, but his boss won't let him off work. He told him he could have the day off if he traded with someone. Of course, no one wants to trade with him and the one person willing to has a docter's appointment


Looks like I'll be sitting at home stuffing my face with Halloween candy and watching the cat act stupid

[Tessar]

I'm sorry, that's annoying.

[GrayMouser]

Typhoon Megi- another bad one. Like Morakot last year, it wasn't the winds so much as it was big and slow, just sitting there sucking up water and dumping it on us. Twelve dead, plus 20 missing from a tour bus that disappeared on a section of mountain highway- the whole chunk just collapsed into the sea.

And of course the gov't moved too slowly in closing down the road.

On a personal whiny note, spent the last three days to Friday soaking wet, ferrying my kids plus nephews and nieces to their assorted schools as well as running errands for various elderly neighbors- lots of people don't have cars- and putting up my wife's cousin's family because they couldn't get back to their mountain village.

Then, Friday night, our county government finally decared a typhoon day for Saturday- which was brilliantly clear, calm and sunny.

[Acalewia]

Last night we had some storms come through. Well our satellite went out. I assumed that the storm had knocked it out. The hubby looked outside to see what it was doing and we noticed a cable truck outside. Of course we were wondering why the cable guy was out there since the whole complex had switched from cable to satellite. This morning the satellite was still out and we found out that the cable guy had cut the lines running to several of the apartments' satellite. Hubby had found this out because the neighbor had called the satellite company to get them to come out and the other neighbors had asked if ours was out. They don't know when they'll be out to fix the line.

Should have got the number off that truck so we could report his butt >.<
He had no right to cut the line because of one of the neighbors switching from cable to satellite

[The last sane person]

The lillac bush infront of my parent's house was savaged by last night's storm. Nothing left but shattered branches. I'm sad, it was older than I was and ever since I was little I would sit on the steps under it and watch all the humming birds and butterflies that used to live in and around it. Oh well.