Panic Before the Kids Arrive

It's time I admitted it. I have gotten at least some of a predisposition for anxiety. I was forced to admit it when I had a full fledged (shaking, crying, heart thumping) panic attack today. It was triggered today in a Professional Learning Committee meeting when I was talking about when I was going to do my intervention block and Teacher Next Door saying "But your specils are at 3 now! Didn't you see the schedule?"

Panic hit. School starts MONDAY. I ran (actually knocking something over...) to my room to check the schedule and sure enough... it had changed. Again (this would be the 3rd time). It took me FOREVER to get that first week of scheduling done, and now I would have to redo it. Team Leader and Republican both tried to help make me feel better, but it wasn't until they left that I could start to pull myself back together. I crawled under my desk, curled up into as small of a ball as possible and focused ONLY on breathing. After... 10-15 minutes I was able to pull myself together, get out, wash my face, blow my nose and start feeling like a human being again. I tried really hard to make the new specials work, but every 'positive' I could get, a negative arose. I was starting to get upset so I decided to go back and discuss with people who know.

First I went to Music Teacher, who makes the schedule. He said it was changed because Principal didn't like how the duty roster was arranged. So I went and cried to Principal and told her why it would be an issue to have my schedule the way it was. The way the schedule was arranged my "Gifted" (AEP) students would have to pack their bags before lunch (at 12:55), so that they could go directly to AEP after lunch. Then they'd go straight from AEP to specials and then home. It was a lot of responsibility to place on those kids from day one. We floated the idea of changing my specials to the morning and having my class have a different recess time. Then I mentioned that Republican had offered to switch specials with me. Principal said that would be best.

I didn't want to dump this on Republican but after some thought decided that I really should. Just THINKING about it was giving me a fit. I had to admit that a more experienced teacher could handle the daily uncertainty better than I ever could. When I told her about the pack up situation she shrugged and said, "Well, they might be late, Mrs. AEP might have to make some changes so they get things first, or they may miss some of specials. It's okay." She could take it in stride whereas I was crying.

It was a relief to hand this off to a more experienced teacher.

Games We Can Play

A great mentor of mine gave me an idea for motivating students to finish transitions faster. It's called Preferred Activity Time. I'm not sure I'm completely implementing it correctly, but in general- I give the students a certain amount of time to do things (like, put away a notebook.) Any time they save I add to their "30 minutes of allowance". Any time they waste gets taken away. At the end of the week we play games. I explained to them that we have to play 'school' games because I didn't want our principal to think we didn't do any learning! These are a few of the games we've played. They've all had varying degrees of success and failure.

Games we can play:
1. Multiple Bingo- Students color in a 100’s chart to get a bingo.
2. Count around the room- Students count up by multiples and try to beat their best time. Can also be done backwards and see who can guess where the count will end.
3. Around the World (Vocabulary, Human Bones, Factors, Arizona Regions)
4. Count Backwards (See count around the room)
5. Jeopardy! (http://jeopardylabs.com/2993) (I paid $1.00 for this cool tool to make an easy online Jeopardy game.)
6. Trashketball (Students are in teams. The first team where everyone can answer the question is given a chance to answer, if they cannot it moves onto another teach. If they get it right they get a chance to throw a piece of trash into the can for extra points.)
7. Charades (Students act out vocabulary words without speaking.)
8. Pass the Monkey! (Students start passing the monkey. When I say ‘freeze’ the monkey stops. I ask a question and the person with the monkey has to answer it before Eleven makes it back to them. If they do answer it, the person who has the money is the next person in the hot seat!)
9. Landscaper (Like around the word, but competitive 2 ways. Students start at each end of the classroom and work towards each other by defeating their classmates in a ‘question’ contest. If a student wins they move on, if they don’t they stop.)

Responding

Here is a question for all of you to chew on. What is the proper response when you're talking to someone and they say, "I was just at a funeral." Is it, I am sorry? Or Did you know the person well? or Are you alright?

They all seem misplaced.