Ah, Redemption

So the last half of last year with the sixth graders was really really hard. Very little real teaching went on. I walked into school three goals; to keep everyone alive, get one thing done in reading and one thing done in math. If I accomplished those three things, I felt like I was successful. Awful isn't it? Five months of awful.

On the days that they drove me most up the wall, I would go and vent to Ms. Hernandez, who worked with them for about an hour everyday for Social Studies. I haven't written much about Ms. Hernandez, but she really is one of my rocks. She's been at ALDR since the beginning and the kids truly both fear and respect her.

But I have to say that she always said that if she was in charge of the kids they would be beautifully behaved and that they would do all their work.

Well. She's teaching them now. Not all day long, but in a rotation with two other teachers. It's only taken from August 'till now, but she is fed up! They don't listen, they don't care, they don't do their work, Ms. Hernandez was ticking all the these things off on her fingers.

So in my head, I did little back flips, jumped up and down and did a little dance. But outwardly, I ticked off on my own finger all the things that worked for me, which parents to call and for whom it worked to take away recess.

Because...I try to be a good person and I felt for her. But honestly, it was all I could do to not say, "I told you so!"