Despite feeling très fatiguée, I had a great morning. We worked on the gingerbread man some more in all of my classes. You will be hearing a lot about this little guy as I have planned a 6 week lesson on him:) It's surprising how much more kids pick up after just a second reading. Some of my older kids were able to pick out full phrases that they understood, "I don't like..." and even new vocabulary that was evident with help from the pictures: kitchen, oven, head, nose... etc. And this time around, the kids were more curious about the sing-song part the gingerbread man says over and over again as he runs away. I say the lines slow at the beginning, but progressively get faster.... My CP kids laughed and giggled every time I read it. At the end they said, "Teach us the gingerbread man song!"
Although it isn't really a song, it is catchy- "Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man." I added some motions to it and broke it down for them to learn. The teacher had little faith in them being able to learn it, but we went over it maybe 3 times and they were all singing it! It was so cute.... maybe I'll video tape it when they get really good at it:) They still get it jumbled and it sounds more like this, "Run, run, asfasahuacan, You cancatch ME, I'm the gemmebrman!" But hey- for 6 year olds who don't speak English- sounds pretty close!
We had boeuf bourgignon for lunch today. Yum yum! My favorite cantine lunch:) I sort of laughed on the inside when I got done and had wiped my plate clean with my baguette. It was only just a few months ago I was watching the teachers wipe their plates with their bread and thought.... how do they do that? Their plates are so clean! But, the student has become the master:)
During lunch, there was a bit of heated conversation about teacher absences. Sabine was absent today and Vincent, the director, had called in a sub. However, the sub didn't show and so they were left scrambling with the kids. In most schools they just break up the kids and put a few in the back of each class. For some reason, Vincent decided to have the 2 special education aids watch the class for the day. I went in and did English, which was fine. We just read the story and reviewed some old material.... but anyway- the point is, some teachers are very upset about the number of absences compared to the number of times they are replaced by a sub. I kind of got the feeling that one teacher was indirectly commenting on a particular teacher's amount of absences... and that she feels bad enough when she takes leave when she's sick because there are no subs, but she has even more anxiety about teachers who don't care about this same worry (or so I think that was her point).
In any event, all the teachers agreed that they do feel bad when they don't come to work and are sick, but when you're sick you're sick, and you shouldn't judge others who may be in the same situation another time. But, the same teacher, who was upset, made the point that you never know if the system is being taken advantage of... if the person is really sick. And the other teachers said- it doesn't matter... we're a team and we respect a teacher's decision to stay home if they feel they can't come in. She said, yeah that's fine, but then parents start to complain about the number of teacher absences and it reflects poorly on all of us. And then one older teacher, whom I don't work with, but usually think is pretty funny, said.... Does it matter? Who knows if the perks of being a teacher will be taken away from us anytime soon. We have some of the best flexibility when it comes to taking sick leave... and on national average, teachers are in the middle with the number of days taken absent. If people want to take advantage of the system, then do it while you can!
I just thought- wow! It must take some major will power for her to come in everyday. (But the funny thing is, I've never seen her absent from school!) I piped up and asked- so you don't have a sick day limit? -Nope. I told them that we have certain rules about how many days you can take off for sick leave or personal leave... but we always have substitutes when we're absent.
As I was walking home, I thought... huh... even though we have substitutes and sick leave limits, I feel like for the majority of teachers, very few miss school if they can help it. I think we have different standards for being sick and how sick is too sick to go to work.... but I don't know, I guess there are always teachers that take advantage of the system and take sick leave more often than they should in America too. Just seemed like an interesting dilemma!
Welp- I'm going to try to go lay down. I just want to feel better! It's so frustrating feeling like I'm always sick. Darn foreign germs and my lack of immunity to you!
Happy first day of spring to you!
Reste cool:)
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