Arghhhh! Do they want me to teach or not?

Sometimes I feel as if my administration prefer that I do not teach and instead host a three ring circus. This place is more poorly run than a FEMA job. I have three periods a day, 100 minutes each. First period gets and extra fifteen minutes b/c there is nothing to do with the children when they get to school except sit them in the auditorium. The thought is they will sit their quietly and read. Right. What actually happens is an escalating noise level followed by on duty teachers calling out "stop that noise", or "hey shut up" which ultimately leads to back talk, disrespect a trip to the office and a whooping. Great way to start the day. This isn't a monastery, its an auditorium filled with 250 youngsters hopped up on sugar from a government sponsored syrup saturated breakfast.

Second period comes right after special. The students arrive at various times from library, gym, and computer. The lack of consistency in their arrival time is mitigated by my ability to shorten the length of lunch to ensure an appropriate class length.

Then there is class three. Regularly disrupted by unannounced assemblies and last minute administrative necessities. Today it was the need for a dry run of MCT setup in the cafeteria. Class was interrupted by a barrage of supercharged fourth graders obnoxiously hollering about having to take my desks. No notice from anybody except the minions of chaos patrolling the hall. I get the skinny and move my class. But at this point I have to accept that my plans for the day will be wildly unfulfilled. We pile into the library to do the best we can coping with the apocalyptic noise of students dragging, slamming, hauling desks down the hall to the cafeteria. Doing things quietly is a concept more complex than a Rubix Cube and the already abundant volume is accompanied by the screams of children carrying those desks. I think there is a conspiracy against the end of the day. The thought process must be - lets test the teachers ability to deal with an absence of coordinated organization instead of issuing a plan for abnormalities in the day. I think easy genius would be to utilize a schedule that shortens all periods so there is additional time at the end of the day to do what needs to be done. This is called an assembly schedule. We have one of these. I have the poster of the assembly schedule hanging in my room. Is it used? NEVER. We prefer to use the 'last minute announcement to obliterate third period' method instead. It's cool though we rebound tomorrow.