I always have that one group

This week has been extremely stressful. First, the amount of work (lesson planning, grading, dealing with students, teaching, conferences, etc.) has almost tripled from last week. No, it's not an exaggeration. I find myself running on only about 6-7 hours of sleep this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and not really engaging in my social life. This is much worse than my first year of teaching and the challenges posed this year are definitely greater.

Day in and day out, the challenges of my first period class this year are showing and growing. I quite possibly believe that this year's first period may be able to beat last year's second period as my WORST class. Not only do I have eleven (a student in 1st period was tested, diagnosed and placed on an IEP on Monday) students with special-ed requirements and IEP's, but I have a group of loud, obnoxious students - both guys and girls - added to my list of troublesome students. Put together, this comes to a total of 16. Out of 32 students. The other 16 students are MARVELOUS, angelic, motivated, diligent and behaved - and I feel really bad that they have to see me in my "not so good" state because of the other difficult half of the class. Don't get me wrong. I have NOTHING against students with IEP's or that are special ed... in fact, some of them are my best students. However, no teacher can contest to the fact that the greater the number of special needs students and IEP's in a class period, the greater the workload and the greater the challenges begin to come out from that class.

In this troublesome group...

• 3 of the 5 students have F's in the gradebook right now. These F's range from a 17% to a 41%. The other two students have D's, ranging from a 59.6% to a 63%.
• The students CAN NOT and probably WILL NOT stop talking!! Not when I'm lecturing, teaching, etc. Not in group or partner activities. Not in class activities. Not with the substitute teacher on Tuesday when I had a meeting.
• Don't even get me started about their ability to stay on task... or how long they have been putting off making up tests, quizzes and homework assignments.

One thing they can be reliable for : showing up in class! They are almost NEVER gone. 1st period is not a pleasant class.

I really want to make this situation better. But for right now, I am so exhausted that I think I might go and take a nap.