Wrapping up the drama, looking forward to vacation

Things seem to have calmed down a little bit since last week. I brought up the abuse situation with the directeur and the maitresse and they said they would take care of the problem with M hitting B. However, they were slightly less receptive to the idea that M is himself abused, using such lines as "we know the family, his sister doesn't show any signs, etc." Apparently M gets into a lot of fights anyway. I was concerned that they weren't going to at least make sure that nothing was wrong on M's end when the directeur finally said that I had made a good point, and they would be vigilant. I asked B about it later and she said M had never said anything to her about being hit. I hope he's okay, we'll see.

As far as the monster class goes, the maitre/directeur is back this week from being on leave, and thankfully he took my side in everything and appologized for their lack of respect for me. As I know from other assistants, it could easily have gone the other way and I would have been blamed for not keeping better control of the class. He said that I won't be left alone with them again, which I guess is a good thing, but his solution is now that we will divide the class in half and both teach at the same time in the same room. It didn't go so well that way on Tuesday. I couldn't speak loudly enough for the kids in the back to hear me, I couldn't hear them when they tried to speak, everyone was trying to be quiet and getting nothing accomplished. It was silly. So now I have to think of a different solution to the problem. And even though I "won't be left alone with them again," the directeur has some sort of meeting during part of that class tomorrow, so I'll be left alone with those little brats yet again! At this point my frustration is mostly directed at the CM1, not the CE2. Maybe I can just shove the CM1 off onto him?

Evaluations for the CM2 took place this week. Unfortunately one of my schools didn't do so well, and I'm kind of upset about that. The maitresse was really nice about it though when I said something to her about it, she said that it wasn't a problem with the teaching, just that the kids don't pay attention very well. She said it's the same in all of their other subjects too. So that made me feel better. I haven't finished grading my other CM2 class yet but it's going much better so far.

Man do I need this vacation! I feel like I've been running around a lot lately and not really resting and relaxing. Not that I'll be sitting on my butt during break, but it will be a change of pace and scenery, and I'm going to see so many new and interesting things that I've dreamed about seeing for years. I'm so excited, in 48 hours I'll be in Prague with my friend Joanna! This is her second year teaching English there. We have a lot to catch up on, and I'm sure a lot of commiserating about the little brats - uhhh, I mean, those little angels!