Another Day at the Day Care Center

...And I'm not talking about my grandchildren.  I'm talking about my workplace!  In order to understand what I do every day at school, one has to understand the 14-year-old mind.  If you can do that, you need to replace me at Monrovia Middle School!  I keep trying, but I think I'm getting too old to get it.  At that age, kids are either dressing and acting exactly the same in order to feel accepted, or they are way out in left field in order to assert their individuality.  There is no middle ground.  They are questioning, rebellious, and hormone-driven.  It is a frustrating time for them and for their parents/teachers.  I continue to be amazed, however, at the deficits with which I am working.

Today, we were reading the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" by American poet Walt Whitman, about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  A couple of lines read:

      "O Captain!  My Captain!  Rise up and hear the bells!/ Rise up--for you the flag is  furled--for you the bugle trills."

One of my young scholars raised his hand and asked, "Did they really have Bugles back then?"   My response was, "Of course they did!"  He persisted.  "Really?"  I was confused for a moment or two until I realized that he was talking about the corn chips called "Bugles".  Uh..."Do you not know that a bugle is a horn?  That the military uses bugles to blow things like Taps and Reveille??"  His response:  "Not until just now."  I asked if anyone else didn't know that a bugle is a horn.  At least three other hands went up.  Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you--how am I supposed to come up with strategies to help students pass the ISTEP tests when they don't even have a basic working knowledge of the language????

Later in the day, there was a fight in the hall between two girls, one of whom is already on probation.  We have worked SO HARD to keep her in school and on the straight-and-narrow, but she is now on really shaky ground in her personal life and at school.  We can't fix it!

On another note, my daughter got up this morning with the stomach bug that the rest of us struggled with earlier.  She went to work--only her second day on the job--and toughed it out...but it had to be wicked.  She spent most of the evening on the couch.  Thank goodness the children are with their father!  She needed to rest, and I couldn't have handled pre-schoolers after a day at the older day care center!  I tried to give her a little of what she needed--liquids and a little digestible food.  It ain't fun!

Tonight, I did three loads of laundry, took the garbage out, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, picked up some items at the grocery story and took care of my sickie daughter.  Where does the time go??