This morning I came into school to a rather rude awakening. My classroom was torn apart, again! Half the desks were out in the hall, half were inside pushed against the wall as was my desk too. They were covered in a plastic tarp and there was dirt and dust everywhere. I was fairly annoyed. I immediately went to the principal's office to ask "Have you seen my classroom this morning?" He was definately irritated and wondered why on earth the maintenance personnel did not wait until the weekend to do such a big job. We frantically tried to reorganize and managed to pull the room back together before classes started. My students were complaining about the smell and upset about the second new seating plan in as many days. I don't blame them. I got a headache too due to the fumes. Hopefully tomorrow things will be as I left them tonight.
I was also concerned because my students did not perform as well on their Language Arts test as I had hoped. Many did well, most passed, but clearly there are some who haven't been paying any attention at all. This is disturbing. There is only so much you can blame on the language barrier. I took all the questions straight out of their homework and even included prompts I did not want to, just to make it a bit easier for them. It is clear we have much review to do over the next week. I'm not sure if because the format was not the same they were used to, but I went through each and every question and even provided examples. Mrs. Doogie also translated the test into Mongolian. I understand a few not listening and thus, not understanding what was asked of them, but it seemed most were unclear about what the question was asking of them. I have my work cut out for me!
On the one plus side, they say maybe the hot water will come back on tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath but it sure would be nice to actually use my bathtub again. I hate having to go down to the first floor to shower. I sure would like to have a bath!