Three ring cirus

I have decided this week that teaching is like working in a three ring circus. Also, instead of being the ringleader, I more like the clown that comes out while everything else is going on, trying to steal the spotlight. This week has been completely indescribable. I had a student start a fire in my room on Monday, while I was at meetings all day. He obviously saw having a substitute as a moment of vulnerability. During a break one of the facilitators of the meeting came in and had a message for me to call school as soon as I had a break. With my heart pounding I called school, wondering what in the world they would need me for. I found out all the details and had a restless afternoon and evening waiting to get back to school. It is pretty amazing how fast they cleaned everything up. Besides smelling strongly like cleaning materials, my room was amazingly not too disturbed, thanks to the people who worked overnight to make sure we could be there on Tuesday.

Obviously that threw our week off a bit. Yesterday afternoon I was completely burned out and tired. I felt numb. It was funny because I felt like I was watching my class from the ceiling. I have pyromaniac; one student who has been in the office all morning because he made an explicit comment; a student who has a hand on his desk, pushing himself up and down as he hits himself on the butt with the other hand; someone chewing on his backpack strap while still wondering why I didn't let him eat the marshmallow from science that fell on the floor; an ultra-quiet girl, who hardly ever smiles, but does amazingly well in school. There are papers all over the floor, backpacks are on the backs but unzipped and close to losing their contents. Maybe we should blame all the crazy on the smell...oh, I work with some great kiddos!