A Year Later

Wow, I did not realize I hadn't logged on in almost year.  I could have sworn that I did at some point, but maybe I didn't get around to actually posting something.

What I'm doing with my life currently is my final practicum placement before student teaching!  It's been crazy and a great learning experience.  The kiddos love me from what I can tell. :)  Today I had these lovely kindergarten girls insist on sitting next to me on the floor and they kept scooting closer and closer.  It was absolutely adorable.  Whenever I see the kids in the hall I usually hear, "Hi Ms. Niemi!  Are you in our class today?!"  I'm kind of sad that my school schedule doesn't allow for me to be there every day!

My cat just had to crawl into my lap right now.  LOL.

Right now I'm doing my edTPA for the class.  Kind of a challenge getting everything ready.  I haven't done education classes in about a year, and I could tell that I lost some knowledge when I had first arrived at the placement.  It's a lot better now.  I feel much more confident in my ability. 

Today was a learning moment though.  I messed up.  I'll admit it.  Luckily, it wasn't as worse as it could have been and that's what makes me sick to my stomach.  See, a lot of schools have a certain way you should handle kids that are getting belligerent or are becoming unsafe - to themselves and others.  I know this.  I do.  The big thing - you don't touch them.  Well, in the kindergarten class today this little boy grabbed the exercise ball, put it on top of the chair and proceeded to start climbing on top of it.  Accident waiting to happen, right?

I told him to get down.  I gave him at least two warnings, and then he was on the top wobbling and in that moment all I could see was him falling and cracking his head open.  The teacher was across the room telling him to get down and there he was rocking back and forth getting closer and closer to falling.

So I did what I thought was right.  I went to pick him up.  And I had to put him back down on the wobbly ball.  Because if - as a teacher - you hurt the child in the process of protecting them from hurting themselves you get fucked.  I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS.  I mean, I understand why the schools have gotten to this point.  Obviously, a child was hurt somehow in the process of being saved from hurting themselves worse, parents go upset and sued the school.  What kind of a shitty world is this?  Where parents are so unthankful that you saved little Johnny from breaking his arm that the small amount of hurt they received from being saved is grounds for suing?

And I want to know just how far this goes.  If a student is running with scissors, you tell them to stop and they trip and fall on the blades and get MAJORLY hurt.....because you told them to stop that somehow makes you not legally responsible?  Just saying, but I don't think it's that easy.  What about when a student ends up dead from a crazy accident?  Like jumping from one climbing rope to the other?  You tell them to stop, they don't and fall 20 feet on their head.  This whole situation makes me so angry.

Work Now, Work Later

So my practicum experience has been a bit of a slow starter.  My cooperating teacher's kids have been sick the last week, and so he wasn't able to make it in to school.  Because of such, I missed out on two days - or six hours - of my experience.  Little disappointing and now there are some other factors I'm worried about.

Those factors.  Well, I mean, it's not too many.  It's more factors that are concerning me about how I'm going to make my hours for ARTED208.  The full-time manager at my store is going to be putting in her resignation next week.  This lady is amazing as a co-worker and as a friend, and I'm going to miss her dearly.  Where my stress comes in is that she and I had it figured out - my schedule - for my practicum experience all in advance so I wouldn't need to worry about what days I'd have off from work; I'd have it all planned out.

Well, since she's leaving now, and before my hours are filled, I'm concerned my Regional Manager is not going to be able to respect the days I needed, and instead tell me that as the part-time manager, I need to suck it up and take my "manager responsibility" and fill in Michelle's position.  

I'm ready for a talk with her though.  This class is the priority, not work.  That's a little hard for me because work IS how I pay for everything while I'm here at college.  I have an apartment I have to pay for, insurance that needs coverage, WiFi to attend to so I can do homework not on campus, and so while this current job is important, ultimately my FUTURE job is important.  The job where I'm going to be impacting children's lives till I'm sixty or even seventy.  (Yes, that would be so cool to teach art that long).

This will be difficult.  Heck yes, on so many levels.  But, I guess if an agreement cannot be found, I'll need to perhaps leave a current job that I enjoy over any of my past jobs, for the opportunity to make sure I'm 100% prepared for my future job.