One at a time

I try not to focus on the negative when I write here, but I just want to say that most of the time when I finish a day, I don't like teaching. Most of my children are wonderful and I would be happy tutoring them all day long. But teaching them is not working out as well.

My hair is falling out and I have lost 7 or 8 pounds. Today I actually yelled in class and felt so awful for being mad at them when they are 6 and they had syrup at breakfast and tests all morning and it's really only 4 or 5 who were just toally misbehaving and the rest were basically on task that I cried. In class. In front of my six and seven year olds. Who are mostly absolutely wonderful.

There's E--, who, in the face of problems at home, has become shy and clingy. He is considered almost unteachable. But during library yesterday, we sat down with one of the wonderful donated LeapPads. He snuggled onto my lap. He was able to point out many of the letters as we played a letter game, when he couldn't at all at the beginning of the year.

There's S--, who is the only one who asked me, "Are you okay, Mi' Hay'?"

There's J--, who is a huge behavior issue because she SMILES whenever she gets in trouble and it drives me batty. She won't sit still in timeout. But after school, when the other kids have left, she loves to count the hundreds board or say the letters and their sounds.

But in class, with everyone there, in my small room, with no where to send them out, I can't make them all sit and behave. And while I hold J--'s hand half of the afternoon so he doesn't spread himself all over the floor and the walls and the feet of the other children, I can't hold everyone's hand.

We have a marble jar, and we're almost to the party, but we only got 2 marbles today because people wouldn't be quiet. They're not getting marbles because they are making me lose mine.