My day from hell

With the more frequent calls from my CBE boyfriend also comes more inevitable hell. Boy, did I get some today. I taught what could only have been the proverbial devil's spawn. Or maybe the class was a grooming centre for future sociopaths. I've never seen kids so wild before, they had all my junior high experience beat by a mile.

I was woken up by my phone (I am now mechanically trained to answer calls using my PIN number, this may disrupt calls of a social nature) and accepted the job upon hearing it was for Grades 1/2. I'd subbed for this grade before and it had been fine. So, I thought, how bad could this be? Famous last words.

I should've known it was a bad omen to be held up for 20 minutes on Crowchild and 24th where an accident was clogging up the road. I arrived a little late but the kids were still entering the school so it wasn't that bad. I looked over the lesson plan left by the teacher and figured it would be ok. I took attendance, got the calendar done and then realized, none of the kids were listening to a word I was saying. They were doing pretty much anything but. Talking, hitting/slapping/pinching each other, writing on each others' desks, pouring water on each others' desks, you name it, they did it! And the tattle-taleing!! I had at least 5 kids crying throughout the day for whatever slights. Library time was a fiasco of kids running around, screaming and chasing each other. I was ready to quit and walk out of the school halfway through the morning.

During recess I started to de-numb and wondered if I was making a huge mistake by thinking I could be a teacher if I couldn't get a handle over 6 and 7 year olds. They couldn't possibly be that bad, it must be me. I was told that it wasn't me, what I was going through was common to most teachers in the school. During an assembly rehearsal I discovered that the other two Grade 1/2 classes were every bit as wild as mine. Insanity I tell you, I've NEVER had a class like that before, not in Korea, not in China, nowhere. By the end of the day I felt like something the cat dragged in and was thoroughly relieved to see the kids go home where they could raise hell with their families instead of me. Oi.

So now, I'll go to bed not quite so fervently hoping that my CBE boyfriend calls in the morning. Catch you all later.