Who’s Teaching The Children?

That maybe a very strange question considering the fact that I do indeed teach. I have mentioned in pervious postings I am not actually being paid as a teacher right now I took a sub position as an aide.

I work with a Special Ed teacher in a 1-2 grade class; next door to us is a pre-K-Kindergarten Special Needs class. The teacher I work for is leaving she has taken a job testing and teaching other how to teach Autistic Children. She just finished her Maters this year at the University of Alabama “ Roll Tide” :O) and she is about 28 and very smart. She can also be a bit pushy but hey she is young and most times she is right.

Now next door the teacher has been teaching for about 20 plus years and is in her late 50’s. She often has made comments to the younger teacher that she needs to just adjust to the fact she will working “Like This” meaning with-in the school system doing the same job for the next 20 years.

The younger teacher has dreams of changing the system and being one of the people who write policies on Special need units, instead of complaining about the policies like the older teacher.

Since hearing that the younger teacher has taken a better job and is moving up and on the older teacher has been …well ugly. But most days it is just ignored. By ugly I mean making comments like” Who does she think she is? Does she think she can single handily change the world??”

Now I just walk on by smile at her and stay clear…what would it accomplish to say anything and get into it with her? Personally, I think she needs to get over it.

Today things came to a head. The principal told the younger teacher she had to pack the room and be out by Thursday so that the older teacher could have that room (reason it has 2 windows not one yes petty I know). Now this is coming after weeks of the older teacher nagging about moving.

So today while we have students and they are not kids you can sit in front of a video and pack. They need constant one on one and a routine is very important. When things go off track you have behavior problems and I am talking full blown tantrums. Throwing things on the floor, crying, screaming and hitting.

We started packing and our kids went off the edge…honestly I have had it. By 2pm the other aide and I were at our limit when the older teacher instructed her aides to start carrying “HER” things into the room…while we were packing the younger teachers things.

Then the older teacher comes in and instructs me to” mark ALL these boxes so it will be easier for her to go through them”. Mind you during all this I still have to stop Pete from smacking Sam and Jack from walking out of the room to explore.

I look at her and say” Not on you life! You want them marked the marker is right there… you and Younger teacher have at it…or grab a kid and keep them occupied”.

At that point I stop packing to watch the kids. The other aide starts potting them so we can cycle them out and on buses.

The younger teacher comes in complaining about the older teacher cornering her in the hall saying “WE” need to do blah and blah… in walks older teacher…younger teacher walks into the hall…older teacher follows mouth moving full speed…next thing I hear…” You can do whatever you like …feel free to pack the boxes and mark them”…. and it goes on and it gets louder…. now ALL the kids in the first grade hall can hear.

Ends up with Younger teacher in room crying because what she wants to do is smack older teacher, older teacher walking down the hall chasing one of her students who escaped while her aides were trying to pack her room and all of us aides in another room shaking our heads trying to figure out how we are going to survive till Thursday at 11:30 and keep the children busy.

So now the aides are the teachers( I need to check into that extra pay) and apparently the teachers are the children!

We (as in the aides) have decided that our first priority is our students and the teacher need to get their shit together.

And that ladies and gents is my last Monday of the school year.