These children need for you to remember that they are people. MO The best advice that I got in my first year of teaching was to be over-prepared. Now I realize that students benefit from any experience that gives them a fair chance to succeed. Their behavior will reflect the boost in self-esteem. Now, I sit in an empty classroom.
Chairs sit upside down on each desk.
With legs sticking up into the air they look like snags of a burned-out forest. Other chairs are dropped onto their sides. Crumpled and torn paper scraps lay in corners of the room concentrated in spots, like birdseed, revealing the active areas of the room. The quiet scene belies the motion from moments ago. I am tired.