Favorites from week 1

Day 1
"Ms. Fisher, is this your first year teaching?"
"Ms. Fisher...are you nervous...you seem nervous."

In my frantic state of Monday, I continually decreased effectiveness (TFA joke) by placing paper after paper in random places around the room. I spent all of Monday thinking to myself, "Good God! Where in hell did I put that down?!" while pretending to know exactly what I was doing and the precise location of what I needed next...I heavily doubt I succeeded in fooling anyone.

Day 5
Tre, a 6'3 African American student heatedly approaching a 4'9 Latino male after little Alexis accidentally sat in Tre's seat.

Brianna standing up in the middle of class and yelling, "Ima take him out into the hall and kick his m***** f***ing little a**!" "Brianna, sit down." "Ima kick his m***** f***ing a**!"

I hadn't realized that a fight might actually break out in my classroom until these situations went down - oooh 4th block, how I appreciate thee.

I ended my first and final day of this first week in a state of shock, needing an hour to stare into space to let everything settle. Luckily, a friendly '07 sat down with me to debrief on both of these days, bringing me from relatively near teary frustration to motivated calm. I don't know what I would do without her at this point.


Week 2 begins tomorrow. Pray for my leadership guiding students to appropriate behavior and academic confidence.