Trying is failing with honor.
So I find myself asking….what is the “secret”? I’m not sure if any of you have seen the DVD entitled “The Secret”. But supposedly Oprah is raving about it. Not that whatever Oprah says gets me thinking because to be quite honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 15 minutes of her show….and that is probably stretching it. But I know people who LOVE her. So one needs to stop and wonder, what makes this millionaire woman so magnetic and is this “secret” stuff real?
So I went to the website and I’m reading all the testimonials on it and even watched the trailer. Hmmmmmm…..maybe I’ll check the book out.
But on another note, I’ll share with you a secret thought I had the other day. There was a student that I thought about taking my hand receiver to the phone in my room and knocking him on the head. Now, before you stop and start to criticize me and wonder who can you call to have my teaching credentials revoked you need to listen to the story.
We have this student….I’ll call him Trevor, who has been very hard to handle. Trevor has had a history of being difficult and even this year was sent away for a few weeks to an alternative school to work on building character traits. Anyway, he’s come back from that alternative school and has had a couple good days…but mostly he hasn’t changed. So, we have a discipline program in place at school and Step 4 is where the student goes to another classroom to fill out a slip about their behavior and make an action plan on what they plan on doing to change it.
Well my students and I are busy scribbling our daily thoughts into our Writer’s Notebook when my side door opens and I hear Trevor talking back to Amy. Telling her things such as “I don’t like you”, “You’re an awful teacher”, “You don’t know what your doing”, and “I’m not listening to you…la la la la”.
So she brings him in and I tell him to sit in the refocus desk and he makes a face at me. I ignore it and continue working. When Amy brings in the slip, I take it over to him to have him start filling it out. Every time I tried to put it in front of him he would move his hands so I couldn’t. After telling him to stop once (I’m not in the mood for his games), I pick up the phone to call the office because his actions have moved him to Step 5 which is Office Referral. I dial the number to the office and watch Trevor reach up with his pencil and push the disconnect button. Mind you, it felt as if it were happening in slow motion. I saw him raising the pencil and turning his mocking grin to me and slowly push the button. I couldn’t believe it…..I truly was wondering if this kid was for real.
So I take the pencil away, cover the button and call again and ask the office to send
someone down to get this child. While we are waiting, I am filling out the necessary forms (yes – there are always forms to fill out, no matter what job you are in) and a student tells me that Trevor has taken a push pin out of the wall and is rubbing it on the desk. I walk over and sure enough there are scratch marks all over the desk. Defacing school property – if this kid wasn’t already at step 5 he would have been then. So I tell Trevor to give me the push pin. And he sits there talking to me in his baby voice (literally – a baby voice). “Give you what? Give you what? Give you what?”
This goes on for about 30 seconds until the assistant principal comes and at that point Trevor throws the push pin on the floor and gets up and starts walking to the door. I say “Trevor, pick that up now”. And he ignores me until the Assistant Principal tells him too. So get this – Trevor walks over and picks up the push pin and begins to push the pin into the live plant that I have on the desk. I am watching him do this, expecting the principal to say something. When he doesn’t, I manage to grind out and tell Trevor to stop and leave. He leaves but not without making me want to pick that phone up and bonk him on the head. Can you believe it?? Would you ever have done that?
I look at my class and they are just staring. At that point, I thank my stars that for the most part (except for my one bi-polar student who hasn’t acted up in quite some time (knock on wood)), that I truly have a great class and they would NEVER pull that stunt with me. NEVER. So now you know my secret….I guess it’s no longer a secret. I can almost guarantee my secret of wanting to bonk him on the head would have crossed your mind too.
Things I wonder……………..
What is the secret to being the world’s greatest teacher? I have this quote on my writer’s notebook….I wonder – can I? Will I?
Why is my cat Diego terrified of the balloon we have in the house? If I go near it, he runs.
Is Bella our other cat truly using the toilet secretly? Chris videotaped her once doing and we have reason to suspect she does it more often.
Why does Mack rub his nose on the floor and than his food bowl prior to eating, take one piece run into another room eat it and go back and it the rest? He does this all the time? It’s his before eating ritual but why?
Just some thoughts…
Love,
Katie
So I find myself asking….what is the “secret”? I’m not sure if any of you have seen the DVD entitled “The Secret”. But supposedly Oprah is raving about it. Not that whatever Oprah says gets me thinking because to be quite honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 15 minutes of her show….and that is probably stretching it. But I know people who LOVE her. So one needs to stop and wonder, what makes this millionaire woman so magnetic and is this “secret” stuff real?
So I went to the website and I’m reading all the testimonials on it and even watched the trailer. Hmmmmmm…..maybe I’ll check the book out.
But on another note, I’ll share with you a secret thought I had the other day. There was a student that I thought about taking my hand receiver to the phone in my room and knocking him on the head. Now, before you stop and start to criticize me and wonder who can you call to have my teaching credentials revoked you need to listen to the story.
We have this student….I’ll call him Trevor, who has been very hard to handle. Trevor has had a history of being difficult and even this year was sent away for a few weeks to an alternative school to work on building character traits. Anyway, he’s come back from that alternative school and has had a couple good days…but mostly he hasn’t changed. So, we have a discipline program in place at school and Step 4 is where the student goes to another classroom to fill out a slip about their behavior and make an action plan on what they plan on doing to change it.
Well my students and I are busy scribbling our daily thoughts into our Writer’s Notebook when my side door opens and I hear Trevor talking back to Amy. Telling her things such as “I don’t like you”, “You’re an awful teacher”, “You don’t know what your doing”, and “I’m not listening to you…la la la la”.
So she brings him in and I tell him to sit in the refocus desk and he makes a face at me. I ignore it and continue working. When Amy brings in the slip, I take it over to him to have him start filling it out. Every time I tried to put it in front of him he would move his hands so I couldn’t. After telling him to stop once (I’m not in the mood for his games), I pick up the phone to call the office because his actions have moved him to Step 5 which is Office Referral. I dial the number to the office and watch Trevor reach up with his pencil and push the disconnect button. Mind you, it felt as if it were happening in slow motion. I saw him raising the pencil and turning his mocking grin to me and slowly push the button. I couldn’t believe it…..I truly was wondering if this kid was for real.
So I take the pencil away, cover the button and call again and ask the office to send
someone down to get this child. While we are waiting, I am filling out the necessary forms (yes – there are always forms to fill out, no matter what job you are in) and a student tells me that Trevor has taken a push pin out of the wall and is rubbing it on the desk. I walk over and sure enough there are scratch marks all over the desk. Defacing school property – if this kid wasn’t already at step 5 he would have been then. So I tell Trevor to give me the push pin. And he sits there talking to me in his baby voice (literally – a baby voice). “Give you what? Give you what? Give you what?”This goes on for about 30 seconds until the assistant principal comes and at that point Trevor throws the push pin on the floor and gets up and starts walking to the door. I say “Trevor, pick that up now”. And he ignores me until the Assistant Principal tells him too. So get this – Trevor walks over and picks up the push pin and begins to push the pin into the live plant that I have on the desk. I am watching him do this, expecting the principal to say something. When he doesn’t, I manage to grind out and tell Trevor to stop and leave. He leaves but not without making me want to pick that phone up and bonk him on the head. Can you believe it?? Would you ever have done that?
I look at my class and they are just staring. At that point, I thank my stars that for the most part (except for my one bi-polar student who hasn’t acted up in quite some time (knock on wood)), that I truly have a great class and they would NEVER pull that stunt with me. NEVER. So now you know my secret….I guess it’s no longer a secret. I can almost guarantee my secret of wanting to bonk him on the head would have crossed your mind too.
Things I wonder……………..
What is the secret to being the world’s greatest teacher? I have this quote on my writer’s notebook….I wonder – can I? Will I?
Why is my cat Diego terrified of the balloon we have in the house? If I go near it, he runs.
Is Bella our other cat truly using the toilet secretly? Chris videotaped her once doing and we have reason to suspect she does it more often.
Why does Mack rub his nose on the floor and than his food bowl prior to eating, take one piece run into another room eat it and go back and it the rest? He does this all the time? It’s his before eating ritual but why?
Just some thoughts…
Love,
Katie
