Hanging on by my fingernails.

Three more days until break.
Kids are bonkers this week. We expected this. We haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot in the way of teaching. A little, but not a lot.

I keep trying to remember all the not-yelling things I can do to get them to listen. The problem is that I do them, and they quiet down for the length of time it takes for them all to be paying attention, and then as soon as I start to give instructions they start talking again.

I am also going crazy on the subject of name-calling. "He called me a _________" is an almost constant refrain. I am starting to wish I had a fifteen-cornered classroom so I could put them all in their own little corners, away from everyone else, and they could just NOT TALK TO EACH OTHER. However, the room is how the room is.

Tomorrow morning there will be masking tape on the floor, showing where the desks should be. They move them around almost constantly during the day, and wind up bumping into each other, or smashing someone's fingers, or running their chairs into the desks, or what have you. Masking tape. Maybe even masking tape covered by packing tape, except that would probably pull up the finish on the floor. I shall have to ask the teacher across the hall for suggestions about this (or if anyone would notice, on my already-messed-up floor, if a little finish got pulled up.)

They have transferred Victim Girl out of my class and into the third grade downstairs. Intellectually, I realize this is a positive thing: I have a lot of crazies in my class, who were fighting with her ALL THE TIME, and it's unacceptable to have a child too afraid to come to school. On a gut level, however, I am having difficulty not feeling like this is my fault, like I should have done X and Y and Z differently so that these girls would not beat up on her. Sigh.

And of course, what this means now is that the classes are EXTREMELY unbalanced. The teacher downstairs has -- I think -- eight more kids than I do. I wonder if they'll do anything about this, or if I'll just have a teeny-weeny class, at least until someone moves into the catchment.

I keep hearing, in the back of my mind: "If I'm having so much difficulty with this small a class, what am I going to do when I have 25?" What if I'd gotten the (ridiculously huge) fifth grade instead of the third? Augh.

I am losing my mind.

Well I know I miss more than hit
With a face that was launched to sink
An' I seldom feel the bright relief
It's been the worst day since yesterday.

Well, I have finally cried at school. I was wondering how long it would take.

Two of my kids got suspended today. They were beating up another one of my girls (henceforth Victim Girl: she's got more baggage than is allowed on airplanes, and gets picked on ALL THE TIME) in the bathroom. One of the perpetrators doesn't surprise me, sad to say, but with regard to the other one I'm just floored. I'd sent Victim Girl to the bathroom with her (we will call her Apparently-not-so-good Girl) on the assumption -- heretofore well borne out -- that VG would be safe with her. The other one went with a partner later on, after I'd seen VG and ANSGG seemingly leaving the bathroom. I guess they went back in. (We will, of course, be completely overhauling the bathroom procedures. We will now be wasting 20 minutes of instructional time every afternoon while I stand out in the hallway and police their little butts.)

So the reading teacher/vice principal yelled at me -- out of frustration with them as much as anything, I think -- in the hall outside the nurse's office where they were keeping the involved kids, and I just lost it. The growth teacher got me to a classroom where I could sob in private for a few minutes, and a couple of teachers who saw me were very comforting (in intention if not necessarily in wording). We talked about a few strategies -- among other things, they said to take tomorrow off from teaching to do some community-building and atmosphere-resetting activities with the kids -- and they sent me home. I've been crying off and on ever since.

I'm losing my mind. I say it every day, with varying levels of playfulness in my voice, but it's never any less true. These kids are insane. I can't control them and it's making me feel like a failure. (What doesn't help is other teachers saying things like "I don't understand. These are normally such good kids." There are probably ways to understand that which are not "You are a failure as a teacher," but I'm having trouble finding them.)

And it would be one thing if I were going this crazy with 30 kids, or even 25. But I've got less than 20. LESS THAN 20 FUCK KIDS AND I CAN'T CONTROL THEM. Why did I think I could be a teacher again?

Mom (with whom I cried on the phone again for an hour once I got home) says to write down the good things and not just the bad ones. So I will note that journals in the morning are going well. I've taken to playing classical iTunes radio while they're writing, which calms me down even if it doesn't calm them down. (of course, occasionally it plays things like the William Tell Overture, which of course is less than helpful. I ought to bring in some of my own CDs...) This morning it was playing a Strauss waltz, so I started doing little waltz steps while they were journaling. They thought this was hilarious, even more so when I grabbed the girl who had come up behind me to ask me a question and waltzed her around for a minute before depositing her back in her chair.

Homework is also working, amazingly. They don't all do it all the time, but most of them do at least something every night.

And with that, it's bedtime. P has put on soothing music, so I shall attempt to sleep. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

bleah.

I can feel myself getting meaner. Stretched thinner. More willing to yell. Afternoons are just impossible. I can't get them to sit quietly. I can't get them to listen. What's the line from Taylor Mali? "By 2:00 their blood sugar is so low they don't have the energy to do anything but beat each other up and scream." Two of my good girls got in an argument today -- or rather, one said something flippant which the other took personally -- and so I had two crying girls on top of the usual list of yelling girls, crazy boys, and general apathy and lunacy. I wonder what would happen if I started teaching math in the morning. I wonder if such a revolutionary course of action is permitted.

I can't seem to get the kids organized in any sort of effective way. The number of my kids that can't sit next to other kids (or will be obnoxious if they do) is ridiculous. The number who would prefer to sit alone makes up approximately the rest of the class. Everyone tells me to have them in groups, but I'd spend so much time stamping out brush fires if I did that I'd never get any teaching done. Maybe I just have to spend a while stamping out brush fires.

I get the feeling that I need to be more consistent about card-turning, or maybe just stricter. More of my kids should be sending notes home, maybe that would have an effect. (The funny thing is, all the strictness and yelling and arguments during the day doesn't stop them from giving me hugs and writing essays about how I am a wise person [prompt was to write about a wise person] and the best teacher ever. It almost makes me feel guilty for all the evil thoughts I think about them. Almost.)

I'm just so TIRED of all this. It's starting to spill over into the rest of my life as well. P and I had a lovely big argument over the weekend about approximately nothing. I'm not eating particularly well. I'm just so TIRED all the time.

(Incidentally, writing this one a zillion-year-old iMac at work is really obnoxious. I keep writing a sentence and a half, making a typo, and then having to wait two minutes for the text on the screen to catch up with what I've written. I miss my laptop. Hopefully I'll be able to get it fixed soon.)

Spent two hours this afternoon making posters and things so that when the school district does its walk through next week we'll have all the appropriate things on the walls. Really makes me wish I had more wall space... or at least walls with paint that tape can adhere to. Where I am supposed to put all this crap I am sure I don't know.

But at any rate, I do not intend to spend any more time in this building today. Off to call Attitude Girl's mom, and then head home. Spinning, tea, and maybe an audiobook on my iPod. Sounds about right to me.