Adventures… Sitting in a Room Full of Elementary Teachers?

So I got an email last week reminding me that my so cherished summer vacation is soon to come to an end. The email informed me that I was to attend a 5 day long training for a new intervention program I have been assigned to teach. It really is as dull as the first two sentences of my blog make it sound.

Predictable as ever, Miss Adams of course wakes up late on the first day. So I decide to throw on what I (but not my mother) deem appropriate training day attire: jeans and a black t-shirt. With the knowledge that my hair was not fully dry and I was wearing jeans…I snuck out of the house thus avoiding my mom yelling that I look, “like a student not a teacher and no matter how hot it is in Perris you can still catch pneumonia going out with wet hair”. No matter how old you are….

I can’t even tell you how fast I had to drive… but I made it and with 5 whole minutes to spare. Thus, taking a deep breath I walked into the small training room! It was packed, but immediately I noticed the lack of usually provided coffee and snacks (stupid budget cuts) not even coffee, I mean really how cheap can you be? Anyway…I take a seat at a table where one middle aged woman is sitting alone. I despite having no coffee tried to be polite and introduced myself. She just looked at me, and said “Oh, okay” and turned away. Another lady joins our table, and then another, and then another, and then another. With each new arrival I introduced myself and get the same response. But they all appear to know each other and happily talk to one another about how awful last years kids were and how they were all going to end up at “The Lake”. I stay quiet, realizing that there is no where for me to move to… and wondering where these teachers are from… I’ve never seen them before… they clearly don’t know I’m from “The Lake”…

And then it comes, as it always comes… the thumb ball. Oh, you don’t know what that is! Let me enlighten you. A thumb ball is an ancient torture technique used by teachers around the world to humiliate students. Okay, so not really… it’s actually just a stupid soft ball we throw around the room to get answers from kids. It is kind of like pulling names. But, it never ceases to amaze me that they make us do this at teacher meetings. Do I really need to have a stupid ball thrown to me for me to know I can speak? Does the instructor think that just because I work with kids I have some how lost my ability to be an adult? And then comes in the factor, can you catch? It is my worst nightmare to miss catching the thumb ball and fall out of my seat, and yes I have seen that happen! Now what is the question we are being forced to answer you ask. Name, rank and serial number! The other sites are enemy territory, say nothing to implicate your site of anything other than grandeur. So finally the thumb ball is mine (didn’t drop it, rock on!). “Denise Adams, 11^th grade English, ummmm…. The Lake…” and then I threw the ball as fast as I could. My table turns… they know… I’m a teacher at “The Lake”…

Come to find out, I’m sitting at a table of elementary school teachers. It is important to know that elementary and high school teachers are fundamentally different. And it really comes down to one major factor. They wonder how we can deal with kids talking back to us and we wonder how they can handle kids peeing on themselves.