A short ride to insanity??

What do you get when you combine four preschool classes (about 45 children between the ages of 3 and 5), about twenty adults and a city bus? Any guesses??? That would be Friday's field trip to the library and a first attempt at using city transportation instead of school transportation for a field trip. The stress level was immeasurable as we had visions of trying to keep small children out of busy streets, seated on bus seats, of crossing roads with a pack of children, and of lost children in the middle of the city.

**Interesting note each child wore what I called an if found please return to name tag - the name and phone number of the school on the front, the child's first name and classroom on the back on a colored yarn around their neck color-coded to the classroom. Kind of like the keychains that let people mail you back your keys. :)**

So what was the result?? We returned with the same number of children (and adults) that we left with, although more exhausted, and everyone enjoyed themselves!! It was successful and actually much easier than the other ways fieldtrips have been done in the past using school transportation - and pretty cheap considering children under 5 are free! We did get some interesting looks from passengers as we marched in a continuous line onto the bus...most seemed intrigued, a few slightly unhappy about being invaded by children but the kids were incredibly well behaved! Also the children were thrilled beyond words about the bus ride - I think they liked the transportation adventure more than the actual fieldtrip part!! I was assigned my little man (Mr. Handsome) and he was all about the bus! The only drawback was that he can not walk well on uneven pavement nor can he independently do any stairs and he can not do big stairs at all so I had to carry him just about everywhere - to the bus stop, onto the bus, off of the bus, to the library, up the stairs in the library, down the stairs in the library, part way to the bus stop, back onto the bus, up stairs to a crosswalk over a street....and he is not a light child. Its a very good thing I love the kid ;) Boy did my muscles get a work out that morning but he had so much fun it was worth it!

So we had a grand adventure on the city bus, we explored the library, and we did so without major problems. One child almost got lost in the street but it was his father's fault as he was with us and assigned to his own child. The child has autism and got distracted by something so he wandered out off the sidewalk without his father noticing - his teacher noticed and did a rapid dive and no one was worse for it once the adrenaline wore off :)

Tomorrow is another great bus adventure to the museum - same group of children who were already excited on Friday to get to go on another bus ride and another field trip. It will be a shorter fieldtrip over all and I pray it goes as well. The kids are going to start to think these field trips are part of the daily/weekly routine and just expect them :) Between all the different age groups making trips to the zoo in April/May, the library trip, and the museum trip it has been fieldtrip central but so much fun for all the children - and so many smiles!!

Don't shoot the messenger!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, VERY bad day! I needed a white flag to carry around with me. Being a student teacher combined with being an administrative intern equals out to many people assuming that I can be used as a one person messenger service even when the messages are undesirable to the receiving party. It also seems to create a sense in the mind of certain people that I can be treated as subhuman and yelled at/be placed on the receiving end of an adult temper tantrum (complete with stamping of feet and waving of arms I might add) for things I have little to do with. I need a large orange vest that says "DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER!"
May I also note that i was miserably sick yesterday (actually have been sick since Friday but pushed myself to work because attendance is a mess).

So yesterday I am asked to go help out in one of the four year old classrooms because the co-teacher was absent. The day before both teachers had been absent and their children had been scattered out amongst the remaining preschool classrooms. Anyway I am down there trying to help out and the teacher asks me to go to the office to see if she can leave early at noon. Warning bells sound in my head here. 1) her attendance has been beyond unstable (if she truly has as many kidney stones as she says she does we can start building a wall out back to rival the great wall of China - I hate to be skeptical but even she told me the drs said she should not be in as much pain as she seems to be) so I knew that was an issue 2) there were already teachers out sick that day and 3) that is so not in my job description. I attempt to protest without coming across insubordinate or whining but I fail and trudge down to the office. Beginning the conversation with the phrase "You can't yell at me. I am just the messenger so you have to promise not to yell or get angry with me." I ask the secretary and assistant director if she can leave early. Of course the answer I receive is no and they give me a return message that they have no one to cover for her, she has already missed so many days, the other teachers complained yesterday having to try to fit her children into their classrooms, and there is just no way and I was to also tell her to stop using me as her messenger. So with a huge sigh and really wishing to be anywhere else at that moment I trudge back down to the classroom and preface the response with "It is not my fault, I am just the messenger. You can not yell at me." Once I repeat everything including about not using me as a messenger she lets loose into an adult temper tantrum directed roughly at me. Oh let the fun begin!! I stand there and take it because really what is my other option?? I can't leave, I can't really yell back, and I can't tell her to grow up which is what I really want to do. So when she finally ends and tells me to go back to the office and tell them a litany of new claims I politely refuse and tell her she is more than welcome to go there herself and discuss it with them. The messenger briefly waves an invisible flag and ducks for cover. I have no idea what went down in the office but she left ten minutes later for the day. A teacher from the toddler classes was pulled to help cover for her and a teacher from the other 4-5 year old room was pulled to cover and I was sent to that room. Anyone else as confused as I was??

So that afternoon we have to figure out what to do with the children for the afternoon care as there are clearly not enough afternoon workers to do the standard groupings of children. After talking with the office and the lead teacher in charge of afternoon groups that day it is decided that the children will be divided into two groups in two locations instead of the standard divisions. Once again I am the messenger for this. So as we start to divide children for this the "master teacher" (my former cooperating teacher who has a major attitude problem) begins to have a temper tantrum. My personal philosophy is that she got angry that things were decided without her "permission" and so she decided to take it out on someone and the lowest person on the totem pole accessible to her was....take a guess...lil'ole me. So as we divide up children she starts getting testy (to be polite, she could have also been riding a broom at that point) because there are too many children in her mind for the two groups and she wants a third group. I, the messenger, have to tell her that there is no teacher for the third group unless she volunteers. *Duck!* So finally the large group of children enter the classroom where I am working with a *NICE* teacher reading stories to children and a smaller group is with another person in the gym and the broom flies off with her cackling friend. As the teacher and I discuss the transition in the room we figure out that sending such a large group to the other person in the gym is probably not a great idea because he has weaker control over the children and even though I was to go with them I was too sick to chase after them to keep them safe/following the rules. He means well but he spends his time getting the wound up and tends to forget little things like safety, rules, and making sure all the children are still there. :) Men! So instead of transitioning the children we decide to just trade places as a group - her and I would take all of our children to the gym because she is so good in engaging them and I could help without having to exert much and anyone should be able to come back to a classroom and read books to a small group of children. Once again a messenger is needed....anyone want to guess who that was? What, no takers? I risk life and limb and locate my former coop. teacher in the hall and explain that we are going to do this explaining what it is and say "only if it is alright with you". Well she goes into the biggest temper tantrum I have ever seen from an adult in my life. Literally she starts to stomp her feet and yell at me and she waves her hands in the air at times. Apparently "NO ONE" is asking her anything and I am most certainly NOT asking her opinion and she knows that he does better in the gym and I know nothing but what does that matter. Trying to be reasonable (and not to cry after the day I had had feeling as nasty as I did) I point out that I am asking her opinion and if that is a reasonable solution for her and she screams at me "No you are not asking my opinion!" and some other things that are kind of jumbled about what I was not doing right and then she throws her hands in the air drama-queen style and yells "Just forget it!" and stomps into the office. I was left in the hall totally confused as to what on earth had just happened and exactly why I was on the receiving end of that explosion. More than anything I wanted to call out "Excuse me, exactly how old are you? And you are in an administrative position here because..." However I had more restraint than that and I turned tail and scurried back into the classroom where the teacher in charge of rotations saw my face and asked me what was wrong - I explained and she went out to discuss with her what we were going to do. It turned out that everything changed again because the guy in the gym ended up leaving 15 minutes later and we needed to create a third group by pulling a third co-teacher from planning time. Interesting note, when I went into a classroom to get supplies for the third group that i ended up helping with guess what the CRITICAL work the wicked witch was doing that could not be interrupted so she could pitch in and just do the third group herself.....gossiping with another lead teacher!! She was standing there propped against the wall just talking about everyone including me because as soon as she saw who was in the room she froze and her eyes got bigger as she thought about what had just been said and if I could have heard it. Again my opinion is that I am older than that stage and if she is still stuck there than I feel sorry for her because I hated it even when I briefly saw it in middle school.

So in exchange for staying late yesterday when feeling awful I was given today off to rest and try to get feeling better. We bartered :) Also I think they were tired of listening to me cough. :)

I have also reached a decision: I will no longer be the messenger! It is not in the job description, it is not anything that my university supervisor/school director/advisor said would be required of me (she would be livid if she knew how i had been treated yesterday - she is out of town for the week but we may talk on Monday), and there is no need for me to take that kind of abuse from anyone just because I am "lower" than them. Also I am going to greatly avoid going into the classrooms of my former coop. teacher and the other teacher when they are there because I simply do not need to be on the receiving end of that stuff. I will try to see my kids when she is not with them in the afternoons or when she is out of the building. As for the other one I will just avoid entering her classroom or talking with her - too bad too because I used to think she was the sweetest person, I had known her from a previous practicum and really liked her, I also used to think she was a great teacher until I spent more time in her classroom this year and got to compare it to other classrooms (plus its another age group).

"Don't shoot the messenger!"

Never Ask What Else Can Go Wrong!!

Thursday was one of those days where we had several "oh crap!" moments. First we had a rather important (or at lease she and the higher-ups at the school/University thought she was important) guest at the school coming in that day to do a tour and observation so we were in a rush to make sure everything was arranged. This involved final preparations, making sure everything was in its place, cleaning (guess who got that job??), and giving tours and a song-and-dance routine to the other important and hoity-toity related guests that kept showing up in advance throughout the day. So stress level was already above normal. Then part way through the morning we notice a large group of people approaching the entrance on the security monitors.....there is a gasp from the secretary...and then she makes a shout to the assistant director that at first makes no sense to me. The agency that oversees at least part of our early intervention program and our funding made a surprise (and not desired at that point) visit to inspect and discuss some things they had on their adgenda. Panic now insues but this is a controlled, behind the scenes panic so we do not let them know we are panicing. Try to do that sometime - have a staff panic without showing they are in a panic running around to make sure everything is perfect, get the director to show up to deal with them, check on the child(ren) they are most likely there to observe, somehow notify teachers without arousing suspicions so they can be onscious of this, and engage the highest level of security checks we have at each entrance to give them a good show of security. YUCK!!! They ended up pulling IFSP files to examine (did I mention I did all those IFSP reviews from hades because in the past the school was documented because there were some problems with the arrangement and missing monthly summaries - very very few - in pulled files??) and then left to get lunch before reviewing their "findings" with the director. As soon as they left we looked at my review checklists for the files they pulled and about screamed - they managed to pull some of the worst files they could have located in the school!!! At least we can prove we are aware of it, we have notified teachers about it, and are in the process of fixing all of the problems by new procedures we have in place and the file reviews I completed. So we had the joy of their visit, their impending return, and the visit of the fancy guest still coming.

At that point the secretary made her stupid move, a move anyone shoudl know not to do...she asked "What else can go wrong?"!!!

Anyone knows to never ask that in the midst of a bad, chaotic day because sure as anything you are gonna find out exactly what else can go wrong. Not fifteen minutes later we are in the office planning lunch when we receive a walkie-talkie call from one of the 4-5 year old classrooms telling us to call emergency (911) for a child as she had just had her fourth sezure that day. Note it was only 12:15 and she arrived at school at 8:30. And we had reason to suspect she had also has a seizure on the bus that morning. So the secretary called 911, the assistant director called the child's mother, and then we had to figure out who was going to go with her to the hospital. The secretary could not go because she had to be there to do her routine (especially with the inspectors returning) and the assistant director kind of should stay to do her song-and-dance with both the inspectors and guests. So the director of outreach voulnteered to go but was nervous because she had never been in a hospital, never in an ER, never in an ambulance and had no idea what to do. She mentioned wanting someone to go with her and I volunteered willingly because 1) the child is a child I adore and 2) I happen to have a lot of experience in the whole ambulance, ER, hospital domain. So we grabbed her emergency info form and ran down to her classroom (this whole call, decision process took less than a minute). We found her with her teachers on her cot out of the seizure (they were all short ones) groggy but definitely coming out of it. The outreach director took notes while I asked the paramedic/hospital questions from the teachers and assistant (and every question I asked was one they asked so score for me!) and then we gently carried her cot out to the hall so as not to scare her classmates. Out in the hall we monitored her and she totally came out of the seizure state and was her playful-full-of-it self by the time the paramedics arrived. She was singing her version of songs, blowing and giving kisses, saying hello, clapping hands, and saying uh-oh and all done and laughing/smiling a lot. Apparently that is one way to get a lot of attention! :) The paramedics fell in love with her - it is impossible not to, she is a dollbaby! However we had no idea if she would seize again so once the ambulance arrived we loaded her and went out to it and made the trip to the children's ER. Her very stressed mother was already in the waiting room by the time we got there (she had called and talked to the EMTs while we waited for the ambulance so she knew her daughter was stable and great then) so the outreach director got her while her ed. assistant who drove over and I answered questions and kept her happy. She was the most cooperative, happy, loving child I have ever seen in a situation like that - amazing! All the drs and nurses knew her from previous visits and were amazed by how good she looked - she was so playful and vocal and happy by then (but we had to follow her emergency plan provided to us). We stayed to help her mom out and just give support for about 3 hours - I held my angel girl for a good amount of time so her mom could go to get her glasses fixed and pick up some of her regular meds while already at the hospital since we had to wait a while for them to fit her into the schedule for testing. Her only complaints were when someone was hooking her up to things she would say (and not loudly or angrily) "all done" and she would whimper if we forgot to give her enough attention. :) She knew that she had an audience and she did not want to lose it to "adult talk" i.e. us talking to each other instead of entertaining her often enough. When we left she was exhausted (she missed most of naptime) and her mom was doing well. The outreach director had to make a return trip with her wheelchair, backpack with supplies, and juice cup so she could have something to drink later on (regular cups are too hard for her). I was glad I could help her and be with her because in some way we have connected and I love that precious girl so much and I also was glad to be able to offer her mom whatever assistance I could even just by listening and caring about her daughter.

So at least I got out of the whole song-and-dance for the guest although I was in a classroom that afternoon when she came to observe and I thought - I a not a trained seal who puts on a show. Either she approves of what I do as a teacher of she does not but I am not going to do an act for her especially after this day. I guess she was satisfied because at the lectures given by her the next day (BORING! the first one was a subject I knew from my courses and the second was just boring - she had a monotone voice, the room was warm and dark....so I watched other people fall asleep :) I confess at least!) she had good things to say about what she saw although she said she did not have time to come to any real conclusions (I thought ma'am you took up our entire day - you could have had all the time you desired). She also seemed to think she was brilliant - I think if you are brilliant you are smart enough to know there is still so much you don't know that you never claim to be an expert or present yourself as brilliant - and made grand claims about children. I want her to spend a week with some of our children and then talk to us - like my firecracker, my purple princess, and my 1/2 M and even Bug. :)

So Thursday was exciting, I learned a lot, and I got to hopefully make a very stressful and scary day a little easier for one precious angel and her incredible mother.