Day 48: Better

I've been asked a few times now how today has gone, especially in relation to yesterday. I can definitely say it's been better.

Despite oversleeping and getting into work in a bit of a muddle, then getting distracted when I was preparing my resources, forgetting some and so forth, the day began quite well.

I had year 7 to start, and made the major fuck up of setting the plenary (to be done at the end of the lesson) as the starter by mistake. Whoops. This meant that the lesson began with something that was actually quite tricky, and I was without an end to the lesson - not good. I managed to think on my feet and set them a rather lame "draw Beowulf!" task which they took to with aplomb.

After year 7 was year 9, and there were only about 8 kids in the class today. They were rather irritating, regardless, and you'd think that with so few kids and 3 (yes, 3) teachers in the class they'd get sufficient attention, but my colleague had to take 2 out for being utterly ridiculous. One of the boys seems to have no boundaries, and tried to hug me when he came in the room, then called me "love". Very irritating. The lesson was a bit of a wash out but I got through the material.

After break I had year 11, and we were talking about apartheid, which was interesting (more so for me than for them) and they were supposed to be coming up with rules for a segregated town but they were a little chatty and annoying instead. Ah well. I did find out that one of the boys struggles far more than I realised before, which means that I need to providing much more support, on top of simplified work for the whole class.

My last lesson was year 10, and I spent the rest of the day preparing for it. The lesson itself went ok, we didn't get a lot covered, but they got going on their work and most contributed to the lesson in a positive way. They are currently my favourite class, and it's nice to have a group I have fun with.

Overall, the day was ok, and I was relieved to have gotten over the "hump" of the week. The only thing that's really getting me down, apart from the kids, is the fact that since I've not been smoking, I feel really left out from the little group I was getting to know. I suppose my lungs are worth the anti-social state I've imposed on myself.