A Daily Roller Coaster

I went into this week feeling unusually sullen. I think that last week was a little more difficult than I was conscious of and I wasn't quite ready for work on Monday. However, I didn't remain in a bad mood or let it infect my teammates and I had a good day of service. After work, I accompanied about 20 other corps members on a trip to City Year Headquarters in Boston for a presentation on becoming a senior corps member. The van ride down was fun; it didn't feel like the ordeal that driving into Boston usually is. Walking into headquarters, I saw many familiar faces. There were corps members from Boston and Rhode Island, many of whom I had met at NELA. It was a blast to see them again – I got a few hugs and said "thanks" again to Brendan, the guy who let me stay with him – but I felt bad for those who hadn’t been at NELA. I did not enjoy seeing my teammates and best friends standing on the side, feeling ostracized and awkward. I had seen parts of the presentation before at NELA and the panel Q&A session did not focus exclusively on becoming part of the senior corps. But while I may not have gotten any insight on what it's like to be a senior corps member, my desire to see City Year grow and improve was reinvigorated.

Tuesday was a roller coaster. The first three classes were full of success. In math, I spent 20 minutes explaining how to solve equations with fractions to the class. Each class starts with a few warm up problems; the math teacher has given me a great amount of power in allowing me to go over them. It is helping me develop my teaching abilities as well as letting me work with the entire class at once. However, the wave of success did not continue all day, crashing after lunch during science. There was supposed to be a substitute but he left early and I was told the regular teacher would arrive shortly. I started working with the students on a brief vocabulary review. Trouble arrived when one student spat a spitball at another student and several kids began pointing and laughing. The student, after rubbing the spitball out of his hair, said, "F—k you" to the spitball shooter. I immediately went into panic mode and remained there for the rest of class. I couldn't get myself into gear and continued reacting to the troublesome behavior of the students instead of being proactive. This seems to be my biggest flaw as a corps member – I can't step back when I'm in the middle of a fire. It doesn't help the situation for me to try to stop kids, to have them conform to what I want when what I want is complete compliance. I know other people might believe we should treat kids as lesser beings, but I believe that the way I treat my teammates is the way I should treat my students – with respect, patience and courtesy.

The whole day wasn't a disaster, though. I stayed at SMS to help DC, the student who had been hit by the spitball. I wanted to talk with him about the incident; I knew that he had felt ganged up on and I wanted him to have someone to go to when he feels overwhelmed. We spent the hour that DC was at Homework Help working on his social studies binder. We wrote down the list of papers that should be in the binder, organized the ones he did have and discovered the ones he was missing. DC only had four assignments missing; we planned on him talking to the teacher to get replacements and working on the assignments during Homework Help on Wednesday.

Wednesday was another day with two distinct halves of good and bad. The math teacher gave the students another warm up on solving equations with fractions. I spent most of the class time helping students individually and going over the problems on the board. I had the students come up to the board and do them. I am aware of the limitations of this approach – students might feel embarrassed working on the board and I may only be helping the student that is at the board. But I need to remember that if I'm only helping one student, she will be better prepared and that's a success.

At Homework Help club, I had another disaster. I was expecting that DC would be ready to get down to work but I was wrong. We have been having a lot of trouble with students getting on computers in the library; DC has been surfing Facebook instead of working on assignments. While I was unsuccessfully trying to get him to do work for social studies, another student asked me if he could get on the computer. When he complained after I said no, I said, "Too bad. This is Homework Club and you need to do your homework." As I watched him walk away, red-faced, I realized that I had taken a rude tone with him. A few minutes later I went over and apologized to him, saying, "I was frustrated with another student and it's not fair for me to be rude to you. You deserve respect. Just because you’re younger than me doesn't mean I shouldn't respect you. I need to work on that and I apologize." He was feeling better when he left but I still felt disappointed in myself.

Things had been rough, but I was ready for Thursday – slightly. My teammate Bear was going to Manchester Hillside Middle School for the day and a corps member from Hillside, Cameron, was shadowing me. The day had no troubles but it was difficult having a guest in my world. I told Cameron that I hope I wasn't being too overbearing, but I acknowledged that, instinctually, I felt that Seabrook was my territory and he was threatening my control over my classrooms. That's a silly way to think – especially considering that I am a guest in the teacher's classrooms – but it's one more thing to work on. Overall, the experience was mutually beneficial. Cameron helped give me tips on running Destination Imagination sessions and he got to see other ways of helping in the classroom.

Friday was the first day of this week that I was really happy for the whole day. I was not in a good mood when I woke up but sometime between when I left my apartment and when I pulled into the parking lot, I was ready for a great day. I think I've finally readjusted to City Year. The only unfortunate part of this is that it happened at the end of the week on a day that I'm leaving early. But I'm already excited to get back to work on Monday for the Young Heroes Opening Day. The next two months are going to be hectic and intensely stressful. However, I'm feeling pretty confident that my happiness and excitement will last through these weeks and I’m looking forward to restarting this year with a smile on my face and a mind ready to serve.