After the first week...

I think I like it. I still have no clue as to what is going on. But it's working.

As I was telling the group at Chevy's, and I apologize if you're hearing this again, but it's my blog and a lot of people weren't there, so NYAH, but I feel that my years as a camp counselor were leading up to this job. There's the two teachers in the room. We do a lot of hands-on and art activities. They talk pretty much constantly. They get up and wander. Some of them can't help it. We're working on raising your hand to speak, and we're making progress, but a couple of them get up to tell you whatever it is they want to say after they raise their hands. But at least they raise them now.

Some are so frigging SMART. They get everything immediately. My math class has 6 kids. They work hard. Three of them, one of whom is autistic, know the answers to EVERYTHING. We played a game called "mystery number" yesterday. In this game, I told them I was thinking of a number where the number in the tens column was X, and the number in the ones column was Y, and they had to use a chart to guess it. Sometimes, the question was that I was thinking of a number that was X less than Y, and they had to use to chart to find it. If they got it on the first try, they got a point. If they missed it, I got a point. And if they won, they would get stickers. They only missed two. They understood the lesson.

Now, I'm not that creative. That was in the script. We use the Saxon program, and it has a script for the teacher's guide. Can't take credit.

We have one kid who hasn't shown up yet. Apparently, this is typical. We've also been told that we shouldn't expect to ever see the parents, because they don't return phone calls and they ignore conferences. That's so sad. They must care a little that they send their son to our school, but evidently, they don't care enough.

And it is SOOOOOOO nice to have a boss who acknowledges your presence. The principal and the president both smile and ask how you're doing when they see you in the hall. On Friday, the principal came around to tell us to have a nice weekend before he left. In two weeks, I've had more acknolwedgement than I had in 10 years with the Dub.

The one thing I'm not happy about is the fact that they are sooo religious. Yes, it's a Catholic school, so I should expect morning prayers and Mass on Friday. But in addition to the Our Father in the morning, there is the Pledge to the Cross (didn't know that even EXISTED) and the Pledge of Allegiance (which is normal and not religious, except when the objectionable line is said). Then there's the blessing before meals. Also not unusual, and I really wanted to say the Hamotzi the first few times, especially since both start with the letter B in the first word. Sigh. BUT...we go to lunch at 11:45. At noon, the church bells ring. They ring the Angellus. We have to stop eating and pray the Angellus, which includes the Hail Mary about four times. Gah. It takes forever. Not to pleased with the sheer amount of Catholicism. I know...what did I expect...but I didn't know how MUCH was going to be shoved on me. But it's the price I'm paying to avoid getting shot in the N.O. public schools.