Wed

This week was really stressful for me. Most of the issues, concerns, stress related blogs will probably be work related. As you may already know I work with kids in an after school program and I am always trying to come up with solutions or alternatives to different situations. I really get caught up with my work and I am learning that I have to leave work at the door but I just can't help it sometimes.

Let me start off by saying that I have 120 elementary age kids ranging from 1st through 6th grade. My Buddy I are the site coordinators. We manage 8 rec leaders and should not be included in the 1 to 15 ratio.

Wed started a bit crazy because 2 of my staff members called in sick and we did not have any subs available. It was raining in Sacramento and everyone knows that makes the kids irritable because they are not able to go outside and burn off extra energy. I was in the classroom with 34 5th and 6th graders when I got a text msg form My Buddy telling me that one of our staff had walked out. I told my IA that he was going to have to be alone with all the kids until I could come back. We rearranged the staff and I ended up in the 1st and 2nd grade class which has 30 kids. It was an emergency so we had 2 subs sent to us from other sites. The sub that came to assist me was great! However the other sub was HORRIBLE. I then was told that one of my 6th grade students needed to be removed from the classroom I had him sent to my class.
I know my kids, especially my 5th and 6th grade students. I know their behavior and I know what to expect from them but they also know our program rules. As it turns the reason why he got sent out was because he was being rude to the sub. But the sub just as was rude and extremely disrespectful to the kids. I talked to the kids about their behavior and told them that I knew the sub was way out of line but still did not excuse their behavior. My voice cracked which is not okay because that is a clear indication that I was letting them see me get upset. I try to role model for my staff when they are messing up and they pick up on that and then they do as they see. We always say "Do as I say not as you see" but we all know that is not true, we are going to do what we see. At the end of the day some of the kids were apologizing to me because they felt bad for making me loose my voice, they really are cute sometimes. I told them it was my fault I did not wear a jacket and that was why I was getting sick which was a total lie. Thursday I woke up feeling horrible and with my voice almost gone.

Lesson: The kids see everything!!! They can tell how I really feel by hearing the tone in my voice, reading my body language, seeing my facial expressions and even if I'm saying one thing they can see my body saying something else.