I deserve a raise

Yesterday I was teaching 2nd grade, and the person who is supposed to help me didn't show up. This isn't unusual, she's been missing a lot lately and I've gotten used to not having a co-teacher for that class. Frankly, she's not that much help when she is there.

But yesterday the kids were out of control. Within 10 minutes I'd sent 4 of them to time out in the back of the classroom. The rest of them were sitting on the floor - we were going to play a game. I realized I'd grabbed the wrong flash cards and walked 4 steps to my desk to get the right ones. And in those 4 steps...chaos. When I turned around all the kids were on top of each other. They were fighting, yelling...it was like Korean hunger games.

I made them all go back to their desks, and they knew how bad they'd just been and how mad I was so they were silent. I was standing there thinking about the best way to handle the situation, and I thought "No. This is not in my job description. Disciplining an entire class is a job for a Korean."  

So I lined them up and walked them to their homeroom. Except their homeroom was filled with 4th graders, and none of them knew where the 2nd grade teacher was. So I walked them to my co-teachers office. She wasn't there either.

Turns out, everybody I needed was in the gym playing ping pong with each other.

I deserve a raise.