The Weather Man

Sorry to say, but this is going to be another rather negative post.

A few weeks ago, I got a flyer in my mailbox at school that said the local meteorologist was interested in coming into the local schools to talk to children about what he does to predict the weather. Awesome. I called right away for the fourth grade. (Since I'm their homeroom teacher and well quite honestly because I like them better.) I ended up making the appointment for third and fourth grade anyway. All he needed was a DVD player and a dry erase board. I have both in my classroom already and hung up looking forward to it.

A week later, Ms. Hernandez started the staff meeting by announcing that she had called to make an appointment for her class and ended up making an appointment for the ENTIRE school on the same day and time as mine. She said to me in front of the entire staff, "As long as you have no objections, I figured that was the best thing to do." I'm happy to say this time that I stuck up for myself and explained that I liked the idea of the small classroom setting for my kids because they would be more likely to get something out of it and that was the reason I had set it up that way. It didn't change anything however, because obviously it didn't really matter if I had objections.

Today was the day he was set to come and we had all received a reminder note in our boxes. I wondered if anyone had set up how we were going to get a TV and a dry erase board over to the cafeteria for the presentation. So when Sr. Callejo walked through my classroom this morning to ask him I learned that no one had thought about this. Two hours later, about an hour and a half before the presentation was to begin, I got a note from the office that it was going to take place in my room for grades 3 - 7. I was not pleased. You can't trust 5 - 7 grade to behave anywhere for anything and I didn't want them all crowded into my classroom AND causing a ruckus. So I asked Sr. Callejo what was going to happen if the older couldn't calm down and pay attention. He said they would be sent back to their classrooms. I wasn't going to hold my breath. I was hopeful.

I had all the fourth graders prepare a question, each of them wrote it down on an index card and practice reading it out loud. Then they took the time to move all the desks and chairs to the side of the room. We clean up and organize so that all the kids will have a place to sit. I even made sure the seventh graders had chairs to sit in because they always put up a fuss about sitting on the floor. The weather man came in just as we were finishing and we had some fantastic lively conversation while he was setting up.

Then everyone else filed in and it was basically a free for all for the next hour. Only the third and fourth graders were trying to pay attention. We had a few errant third graders here and there, but it was easy to catch their eye and remind them to behave. Fifth grade through seventh grade however were talking and fooling around the entire time. Only Ms. Hernandez tried to do something about it and even that was only half heartedly. I was really really angry as I was watching my students tried to hear and learn to no avail.

Then of course, after everyone left we had to put my room back together. So a week before the most important test of the year, my students lost two hours of learning. I *so* hate it when I'm right.

Oh and after everyone left, my room smelled like gross, oily, unshowered, zitty tweens.

Ewww.