So I, too, in my time thought to be happy

Let's be honest: today was hell. I am not a great teacher, by nature. Today could have gone worse, but barely. I have 10 students and have yet to get my diagnostic data on them but can tell that their writing is definitely weak. I was exhausted. I had a "differentiated learning" time, in which I'm supposed to be able to do things like prep for my 9:30am class. Except that we're still supposed to be administering the DRAs. I, instead, was working on prepping for my class and was "written up" for not working on the DRAs, which "could lead to a discussion about professional conduct." At that point, sadly to say, I was too tired to really care.
But I reluctantly went and tried to squeeze a DRA into the 40 mins I had before my first day of class. Bad idea. The DRAs take FOREVER. I ended up having to grab another teacher who was finishing her teaching period so that she could sit with the student I had started. Then I barely had time to grab my materials and get set up between the other person teaching and my class (6 minutes in which I'm supposed to be doing hall duty). My students sat themselves, started writing on a warm up assignment (but not really, they pretty much just sat there), while I started to feel nervous and overwhelmed and unorganized.

And that's when it all went to shit. I kept forgetting things I wanted to talk about. I had a hard time following the lesson plan format that I have to submit to TFA. It's not a good format for me to use while I'm standing in front of the class. It's laid out in a way that does not help me and I can't read the font without my glasses, but if I wear my reading glasses, I can't see the students. And then my assignment was boring. And I did a TERRIBLE job of explaining it. I couldn't figure out how to work the overhead so I had to scrap half of the samples I prepared and didn't know how to organize a time-efficient way to write these long paragraphs on the board to model main idea. And then I was totally incoherent. As soon as I spoke, I was like "doh, that leaves out so much. Fuck. How do I explain that? Did it make sense? They look so bored. I would be bored too. I am not being engaging at all. I'm not even making sense. I'm totally lost on what I was going to do next." It was one of the most horrible feelings I've ever felt, standing in front of them realizing all the ways I didn't prepare and hadn't realized that I needed to prepare until I was up there, and just feeling like I would RUN out of the classroom if I had anywhere I could go.

And then I was observed by my advisor (CMA), who ended up inserting herself into my discipline issue with a student. Which made EVERYTHING worse.

So I'd heard there was a racial divide among the students but I guess I honestly have never seen it occur. Students sat themselves. There are 3 African American students and 7 Hispanic students. I asked them to get into pairs with someone sitting near them (so that they wouldn't be up and moving around and making chaos). Oh they were NOT happy about that because they were not segregated in my classroom. Literally the 3 pairs of cross-racial kids did not talk to each other. Even with my prompting. Did not talk. What am I supposed to do? Encourage a segregated classroom?!? I have no idea how to handle this, especially on the fly as I see it developing and I'm thinking "how the hell do I deal with the fact that there is all this tension and that they are not interacting?" Yeh, I've seen "Freedom Writers" but is that what I'm supposed to do? I have no other models on how to deal.

So one particular student who had been slumping in her seat, making "hmp" noises, and generally exerting a lot of attitude was one student paired with someone of another race. She didn't move her desk closer to his and when I asked her to, she said "I'm gettin there." So she stands up and drags her desk across the floor. I was inclined to ignore this, not really thinking much of it, until my CMA says something to the girl like "don't do that. You need to show some respect." And then it just got ugly. The girl starts talking back like "who are you? I don't have to listen to you." And my CMA says something like "it doesn't matter who I am. I'm an adult." Etc. Then she asks the girl to move her desk back to its original position and move it quietly back next to the other student. "It's not my fault if it makes noise." And it carries on until the girl eventually just shuts up. And then I feel like now I have to take back over the control, and support my CMA telling the kid that she needs to respect adults' instructions. So I tell the girl that she needs to listen and move her desk back and then move it quietly. And she refuses. At which point, I look to my CMA (since after all, I feel like she started this whole thing) who is just making notes. So I send the girl to the office. On the first day. How shitty. As if I wasn't already feeling totally spastic.

Eventually the girl came back in, then my faculty advisor who works at the school (my FA who is apparently supposed to be a resource to me but whom I actually haven't met) came in, took the girl into the hall for a lecture, and then came back in with the girl and observed as I floundered through the rest of my lesson.

Undermined authority. Loss of control. Things just did not go how I wanted. I am actually in shock by how poorly I feel the day went. And then I have no time to process anything because I have to head straight to a 3 hour lecture. But I managed to sneak in a few breaks to the bathroom to cry.

Basically right now I feel like I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm always behind here. I still need to finalize my lesson plan for tomorrow, especially since now I'm aware of ways in which I was not prepared today. I think this will take me hours. Also I need to retake control of my class and give them a talking to, which I have to script out. The copy center closes in 30 mins and I'm running low on both paper and ink on my own printer. Maybe I just won't make any handouts tomorrow. I still don't have resources to use tomorrow, need to find text to use as examples. At this point, since tonight I also had to attend a 2hr workshop and then meet with my CMA to say "help, please help," which she sort of did but I'm still not clear on what I'm doing tomorrow, I'm planning on not sleeping much tonight. Which will not help me tomorrow in the classroom or in planning all the rest of my lessons tomorrow night. But I don't have any other time. And I have to be more prepared tomorrow. And I'm just realizing that I am not good at this. I am at the bottom of a huge learning curve and I am not getting the support I want or feel like I need. It is sink or swim so I have to start swimming.