Farewell, School Number 2

I cleaned out my desk and shelves at the Montessori school today, said goodbye to my co-teacher, and left.

I'm not really sad to be leaving. The ridiculous parent attitudes, the school's role as a social "too hard basket" and the effects of the financial crisis have made this a torrid year. I'm sorry that my early enthusiasm about the school was shattered. The year started out with such promise:  a good job in a gorgeous school a suburb away from where I grew up, teaching in a child-oriented and relaxed environment. It seemed so wonderful. But underneath the shiny exterior was a seething mass of bitter untrusting parents, disrespectful and disengaged children, insular teaching cliques, and politics, politics, politics! I was exhilarated when I started, and thought that I would stay for years. I'm sorry that it didn't work out that way, but at the same time I'm glad I didn't get drawn in and enmeshed with all the craziness. I'm still free to walk away, and I'm walking to something even more wonderful. Next year is going to be glorious!

I'm a little sorry for my co-teacher too. She's losing a very strong co-teaching arrangement, but has to carry on the class regardless. At least most of the really nasty families are not coming back next year, so she will have a nice class to work with.

I'm going to miss my kids, and particularly the little choir I built up out of nothing. The kids sang their hearts out at the family gathering on Wednesday night. When I get a copy of the video I'll post a bit here - the quality won't be good enough for me to worry about posting it like I would with a photo. They sang beautifully and the parents were blown away - one mother told me afterwards that her 6-year-old son had never even mentioned that he was in the choir, so they were blown away when they saw him up there singing! They were also all so pleased that the kids sang a capella, so they could actually be heard. And here was me worrying that it would be odd without backing music! It was a real triumph and I'm so proud of those kids! I will miss that kind of achievement, but new experiences await. And who knows, when I find a permanent position at a school in London, I might just make music there too.

I went shopping after my trip to school. I got all but one of my Christmas presents, along with a bright pink leather cover for the ebook reader I'm getting from Dad, and four t-shirts to supplement my summer wardrobe. A very satisfying exercise.

As you can see in the sidebar, it's now only 140 days until I leave for London. It was 186 days away when I decided that I was going. Time flies!

Last Days

School ends at lunchtime tomorrow, so I've got just over a day left at this school, plus the "family gathering" this evening. It hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm not going to be here in a few days. Right now the classroom is so full of life - Christmas decorations everywhere and glitter all over the floor - that it's hard to comprehend that on Friday morning I'll be packing all my things away and taking them home.

There's some things I'll miss and some I won't, but I'm having trouble focussing on reflections about my Montessori experience. The adventure that's waiting for me in May is so overwhelming that it's eclipsing all other considerations!

I've found evenings a bit strange this week. I've had nothing to do for school - no presents to create or cards to write or reports to finish. So I dragged out my writing again and started examining my abortive 2008 NaNo, of which I wrote 8000+ words before stalling out.

I realised two things about it. The first was that I was writing it from the wrong POV. It's a YA fantasy and it lacked immediacy, which will be solved if I write it in first person. The second was that I was trying to tell too many stories at once. The original story had got lost amongst several other stories that had crept in. At first I cut out a whole section of plot, but eventually I realised that I'm going to have to start over and take the story in a different direction (literally, in fact - the characters are heading into the wilds rather than to the city!). Irritating, but at least I'm writing again.

I'm being a lazy teacher today - I'm sitting at my computer while the kids colour in, do craft and play on the computers. I've got Christmas carols playing on iTunes giving the classroom a dreamy chilled-out feeling. It's very pleasant really!

Not Having a Wonderful Day

This morning a child tried to hurt me for the second time in two weeks. Last week he dug his fingers into my hand while shaking hands (the morning handshake is a normal Montessori thing), and that's my bad hand so I ended up having to ice it and not being able to lift anything heavy all day; and this was after I'd previously and clearly warned him that I had a sensitive hand and his handshakes had to be careful. Today he 'patted me on the shoulder' so hard that my shoulder was still aching two hours later. I immediately went and told the principal, nearly crying, and the principal had a LONG chat with him then a talk with both of us and the child accepted that he'd done the wrong thing and understood why it was a problem (he's a very defiant, confused and complicated child, behind academically and socially too) so that was somewhat okay, but it didn't make me feel great.

Then my co-teacher made a mistake in dealing with a child that allowed a child to make a false accusation against her - for the second time. She went home feeling sick (and partly because the principal was concerned that the child's parents would be violent towards her), so I was left all on my own with the kids all afternoon. We had an alright afternoon, it was okay, just exhausting because I was trying to be two people and deal with twice as many questions and queries all afternoon. And I'm upset with her for being so thoughtless, furious with the parents and the trouble-making kids for putting her in that position, and generally irritated at the whole Parent vs Teacher mentality that allows children to get away with monstrous disrespect and hide behind their parents' blindness.

So I get home eventually, knowing that we have a rent inspection tomorrow. We're going to hit the dusting and mopping when my housemate gets home, which is fine, but I spent my after school time doing two loads of washing, tidying various things, moving boxes, and generally getting the house ready for cleaning. In the process I managed to cut my thumb, and seconds later (while still looking at the thing I cut my thumb on), nearly shut Jemima in a door, and did hit her around the head with it by accident. At that point Jem went under the bed to sulk and I lay down on the floor and cried like I'd wanted to since the kid hit me this morning. I still feel like howling but I managed to pull myself together and go make dinner. I still need to wash the dishes, and my housemate still isn't home so there's still the wiping and dusting and sweeping and mopping to be done together when she gets here. I'm not tired exactly, just emotionally worn out and wanting to have a really good cry, preferably not while on a floor. What a day!

On the upside, I'm getting an even better laptop than originally planned - they can't do it in purple in the time frame, so I'm getting the black one but with enhancements as compensation. I'm going to buy one of those stick-on vinyl tops, probably using one of my own photos of UWA, to customise it. It'll probably be even cooler that way than with purple, and I can change it if I get bored :D This laptop is going to be all kinds of awesome.

Addendum: the house is clean, and I'm about to have a lovely shower then an even more lovely glass of Bailey's as I settle into bed with a book. I had a chat to Mum and a long extended whinge to my housemate and I'm feeling much better now. I rather suspect there's something hormonal going on, on top of everything else!

BROADBAND!

Thank goodness!

School is still going well - I'm not quite getting my food and water right though so I'm coming home very hungry and often dehydrated. Need to figure that out.

I'm finding some contrasts between Montessori and state schools amusing, in a must-laugh-not-cry way. State schools, by and large, have as sterile and controlled an environment as possible, and a long list of "don'ts" aimed at avoiding any possible source of injury or dirt (don't run, don't climb, don't throw, don't play with sticks . . .). And then the classes devote considerable time to activities that develop children's gross motor skills - the running, skipping, hopping, jumping, turning, stopping, throwing, catching stuff. At the Montessori school there's as few "don'ts" as possible. The kids run on the bitumen, climb trees, pick fruit from them and eat it, play in the dirt, climb all over things . . . they even have a flying fox (not one of these tame playground ones, but one you sit on!) which they can use at lunchtime. They do everything kids have traditionally done for fun.

And the school doesn't need to run gross motor skills programmes. The kids don't need classes in it because they get that just by being kids in the playground. Funny that. Typical of the state system to ban everything that develops gross motor skills then insist on classes to develop them in a controlled environment!

Too headachey to blog properly, but all is well :)

WAAAAAAH

So, the removalists phoned today (Saturday). They're packing me tomorrow afternoon and moving me on Monday.

HEEEEEEEEELP!

I completely discombobulated the house so that I could sort boxes and throw stuff away, thinking I would have at least a couple of days' warning before the packing team arrived - not 20 hours' notice and when I was 2 hours from home! There is SO much sorting and tidying to do, and it's already got to nearly 8pm and it's still over 30 C and as sticky and humid as a sauna and looking like it's going to storm, and I had a late night (stayed over at Dad's and nattered until nearly 2am) and an early start (up at 7:30 to get to the Montessori foundation course) and sat on hard chairs in the course all day so I'm stiff as a board, and both my hands ache for various reasons and my knee is acting up . . .

In a nutshell, BAWWWWW.

I don't know how on earth I'm going to be ready for a packing team who are turning up "tomorrow afternoon" when I don't know what time . . . I'm an Aspie, I need a deadline! *panics*

This is going to be a LONG night, and I only have four frozen cupcakes and no chocolate or diet coke. Maybe I should run up to the servo and remedy that before it closes in 10 minutes.

. . . yeah, I should.

But before I do that, because I won't have time to do a proper entry on it, I LOVED the Montessori course and found it inspiring and validating and brought me right back to my roots as a self-regulation raised child and a firm believer in self-directed education and respectful pedagogy. I am totally in the right place.

Oh, and it turns out that my new principal taught my brother during his time at a Montessori high school, the presenter of the course taught my cousins at another Montessori school, and one of the teacher aides is the mother of a boy who was in 10yo brother's class at the public school he started school at. LOL Perth.