Long Days= Hard to Keep Up

Sorry my posts have become few and far between. The days are just brutally long, and when I get home and make dinner, it's pretty much get ready for bed and do it all again the next day. I'm gonna get you all caught up without making it as wordy as possible.

We got assigned to our classes on Thursday and I got the 7th grade class I had hoped for. The first day with the kids for a full day was interesting to say the least. The kids aren't afraid to tell it like it is, and cuss and derogatory remarks are not out of the norm. Some of the kids have a very short attention span as per one student who midway through class just decided to start crawling between desks. When he sat back down, class had wrapped up and the kids were waiting to go to the next class, when a girl grabbed the same kids bookbag and started to suffocate him. At first I thought they were just playing because again, violence is somewhat normal and accepted in their environment. However, I knew this was real when the girl took the straps and pulled them around his head. I stepped in and broke that up immediately. As I talked to the teacher about the situation, I asked what can be done. Discipline wise, not a whole lot. He told me that yelling at them was not an option. This is because most of the kids have a home life in which all that goes on is yelling, so by me yelling at them, they revert back to home and immediately see me as a bad person because I raised my voice.

On Friday, along with the Civic Engagement and Stanton Elementary teams, we prepped Winston for this Friday's service day. We primed rooms, walls, and gyms as we will be painting murals all throughout the school. It doesn't sound hard, but we busted our asses that day. One of the longest days for sure, but it'll be worth it in the end. I guess my Sher Willy (Sherwin-Williams for you unhip people) experience really is going to pay off.

Friday night and Saturday night I went out, had fun. Sunday was a cleaning and laundry day, and today I went to the Holocaust Museum. That will be another post here shortly.