yesterday

had another class visit, which was awesome. we had about 22 kids and they were very well-behaved. a little more difficult to deal with because of how many there were, but they were still very good.
but then we get to the part where its time for them to go to the check-out counter and check out all their books and the other 3 employees of the library have mysteriously disappeared. so here is little old me and 22 kids trying to check out all their books. and of course i don't really know the ins and outs of the check out system, so when our new high tech self-checkout machines malfunctioned, i didn't really know what to do. but luckily, all the other library employees emerged once the class left. so that was helpful. go team!
then T, my troubled mentally disabled 10 year old, started a fight with another kid. i mean pushing and punching fight. so i actually jump between two kids and push them apart and tell T he cannot return to the library without a parent.
does anyone say, "good job" or "way to break up a fight, i bet you were never trained to do that and look at you, you did it anyway?" no, no one said that.
then i had to kick out a table full of kids who were misbehaving, even though one of the kids was a "good kid." then good kid starts crying and says, "no one every yelled at me before i starting coming to the library. i'm a nice boy." so i let him stay and we had a thoughful discussion about controlling our emotions and how sometimes you have to just cry.
then i helped kids do their homework in between yelling at other kids.
so today, no one tells me what a good job i am doing. instead, the branch manager spoke to me about how i need to discipline more, and give less homework help. you see, helping children achieve at school is getting in the way of my yelling time. yell more! help less! i told her i felt helping kids read and do their homework was more important than yelling at kids for having two at a computer. luckily, she corrected me. yelling is more important.
today ... i loathe it here.