A Little Bit Mine

I haven't felt much like writing because I don't want to only write about negatives and the positives are so hard to come by. Until today I hadn't even thought of taking pictures of my room. With the stark white walls, over abundance of boards (bulletin, smart, white), oversized desks, undersized chairs, and poorly placed teachers desk (which I cannot move due to cords and such) the thought of making anything like a classroom seemed impossible. For the first time today I felt like I was starting to see some kind of picture in my room...

This is to the left of my door... I put my calendar, months, days and the like up on the one chunk of wall that isn't marred by bulletin boards. The thought is that the "closet" there, or bookcase as we would call it will house my English stuff... yes I said English... like it's one subject... We currently are working on Jolly Phonics, which is a British phonics system... I kinda like it... though not my idea of teaching reading...

This is straight back from the board... The board on the left is for Science and the right is Social Studies, which I have NO idea what I'm teaching... Back home we can be much more creative... not because they don't want us to be here, but it's completely lost on the students. I was given this "social studies" book... copyright 1989... yep that's right it's over 24 years old! According to the info page it was last updated in 2009, but I find that hard to believe when I look at the pictures. 

The other side... now lets talk about the desks... if you can't tell... those desks are HUGE! And the chairs are tiny! For some crazy reason they gave 2nd graders the upper grade desks, like they didn't know that we were only going up to 3rd grade in our school. My poor students can barely sit with their arms on the desktops because they're so tall! Most of my kids do all of their work standing at their desk. I'm not sure if it would be better to get them the taller chars and have them not fit in them, but be taller, or keep things like this until they day we actually get proper desks. The board in the picture is my math board.

Here's the other side where my schedule is (though I had to hand write some... I should have printed blanks!) and pictures of the Sheiks (pronounced shakes). 

Here's my desk, which I cannot move because of the cords. There are no plugs in the walls, they're all in the floor and only in that one spot. I can't even have a lamp, or a listening station or anything like that because of they way they do the electrical. My desk is unfortunately right in front of the boards, which means that I can't keep the kids in their desks and do any teaching on the board! It kills me! Not to mention that there is no doc camera or anything to project manipulatives. 

This is my white board with my line up order and my behavior chart. It's only working so-so right now, but I hope to get it under control within the next couple of weeks. 

So... what else... Well I have a giant rolling white board for the Arabic and Islamic teachers, because they use the red and green pens which you know don't erase worth crap and then they leave it for me to erase.... like I have endless time to clean up after them! Each time I leave my class I have to lock all of my items away including pens, markers, pencils, stapler, tape... because if I leave it out someone will take it. Easy solution would be to lock the door, but that's not allowed. Oh and I can't turn off my lights either... the best I can do is turn off the back ones... it's a huge pain! I have no filing cabinet or way of making a portfolio on the students and no way of organizing my teaching materials other than the tray in the picture... I'm using the cabinets by the windows instead, which is a huge pain because it's just lots of piles. 

There are like 50 cleaners in our building daily and the place is still always dirty... and not because of stuff being tracked in... Coming over here you would never believe that this place is brand new!  Broken tiles, wobbly desks.. Oh and the doors! The doors are SO heavy my 2nd graders can barely open them. And they're not allowed to go to the bathroom without an escort. We're trying to get something figured out, but I have to stop class to take them to the bathroom, and 5 minutes letter they have to go again! It's absolutely ridiculous! 

On the bright side we got our housing assignments this week and we're getting our keys on Monday. Not that we can move in to our apartments, but it's another step. They said it could be another month before we get our furniture allowance. Which means maybe by Thanksgiving we'll be in our apartments.

For the record... I don't see myself staying past the year. While it's not absolutely awful being here... It's nowhere that I want to stay and I'm not happy here. I feel like there needs to be some measure of happiness. I'm existing here, and I'm safe, and the money is nice, but I don't want to be here and I'm not sure that it's worth it to stay just for the money. I feel like I've had my adventure and it's time to come home. So I don't think I'll come home to visit, but we'll survive and I'll be home before we know it.

The Only Way is Up...

The situation at work right now is so bad, I think I'd be willing to say that I've hit rock bottom. For now I'll focus just on the work and classroom stuff... I took a picture of my classroom on the last work day before the students were scheduled to come start their year.

Yes, this is what the rooms look like for 2nd & 3rd graders. The desks are too large, (though before the students came they did swap out the chairs for smaller ones), there is nothing on the walls (though they did put up the bulletin boards before Sunday), There is a "smart" board, but no pen to use it with, and the software doesn't allow us to work on our computers while displaying anything. 

I would love to sit here and tell you all about the amazing things happening to me here, but it would be a complete lie. The biggest part of me believes whole heartedly that this was a huge mistake and I wish that I would have known how many half truths were being fed to me. 

We finally got our teacher editions on Thursday (That's my "friday") for math, but not for any other subject. I haven't actually taught my children anything in the week they've been in school.  They've spent much of their time in front of the screen watching videos, and to be honest not educational ones, save for an hour in the morning when they do signing time. 

There was one day that my students had to wait an hour and a half to get their lunch. It's things like this that make me so disappointed. The communication is insanely non-existant, and I don't have a functioning clock or AC in my classroom. Now some of you might need a reminder that it's over 100 degrees everyday here... 

I was first given a roster of 6 students for 2C... Sunday 5 of them showed up and they added two more throughout the day. Because of understaffing midway through the week we had to take 2A and divide the class between 2B and my 2C. I had finally started to get an understanding of my class when they added 5 more. 

Then there's the staff... Now let me start by saying that I LOVE the people I share my "home" with... but I am SO aggravated by the people that "work" with me... yes I said "work." I'm talking about those who are never where they're supposed to be, don't get the work done that needs to be done and basically leave all of us hanging...

So my goal for this week is to get things put up in my classroom even though I don't have everything I need... 

One step at a time... that's what I need.