Bone weary and trudging forward

I am weary. Both in heart and body. I feel bad writing this, but I'm just so tired all of the time, and I can't help but wonder if it's my students who are creating this weariness. I'm so tired that I can't even work out. I don't feel like doing Fellows work, and I haven't been sleeping well at night. In fact, I haven't slept more than an hour in two nights. I'm exhausted. The last time I experienced these emotions I ended up with a mild case of the stomach flu back in January.

I know that certain classes are causing me to re-think if whether I should be a teacher next year. My third hour is a constant source of my worst classroom management (I'm super ashamed whenever someone comes to observe!); my seventh just wears me down. Last Wednesday with my third and seventh hours were awful. I don't even want to write about it. But all I have to say is that the sixth graders in seventh hour are just off the wall, and I'm regretting using them as my data group. I was so angry at the two students that were acting out. They made my room look like a circus.

I've been seeing some success with the Read180 program and the differentiated instruction techniques I've been working on. Many of my students are starting to progress into the second disk of the computer-based component of the Read180 program, which has caused others to really want to speed up their progress. The first disk, Art Attack, is pretty boring. The second disk, Disasters, is really interesting because it talks about natural disasters and the devistation that comes of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, and volcanoes. A handful of students are done with the first disk (which makes me wonder whyyy, because they should have been done with it by now, but I see them doing it so I just don't get it...). They've been asking a lot of questions:

"Can you run away from a volcano? What about a tornado?"
"Is it possible for there to be an earthquake here? THERE IS!? Oh my gosh, duck and coverrrr!!"
"Why are there things like floods and volcanoes? Don't those kill people? Why?"

Seth informed me, after reading the book Hiroshima (a Read180 skinny version of the horrible tragedy), "Ms. Franklin! Did you know that if only half of the world's nuclear bombs went off, the world would blow up? ONLY HALF! That's messed up. We need to get rid of these nuclear bombs before someone accidentally blows them up."

Another student informed me, after I read with him in the reading area, "This book is actually pretty good. I didn't think it would be cause the cover is sucky."

And I'm noticing that my second hour is by far the best hour at doing the reading area. I might just throw a root beer float party for them to celebrate how well they're doing.