Yesterday was an exhausting day for my colleague Jasna and me, not to mention our students. The delayed lunchtime disco happened, as did the baking of brownies by another group of students. Their classmates were planning frantically for their own events.
Both disco and brownies were a huge success, but they kept us flat out. After recess, Jasna and I had arranged to have the brownie-bakers go to the Foods room, where we would supervise them. We had to make absolutely sure that they cleaned up afterwards and put everything back where it belonged, or risk the wrath of the Foods teacher, who doesn't teach on Tuesdays. Not only that, but we had to help them find equipment they needed, including baking paper and microwave-safe bowls to melt butter. One of the students nearly placed a metal bowl in the microwave! "Stop!" I shrieked and went to see if our Lighthouse integration room had some (they did).
I went back in Period 4 to supervise all the other students of 8A and B while Jasna continued in the Foods room. The disco organisers had to set up the library and then I had to stay to help out and supervise. Fortunately, colleagues came in to give a hand, and Jasna, who had to do yard duty, was spelled by another colleague, Tina, who asked for the brownies recipe. After lunch my students got the library back to normal - there was surprisingly little rubbish, very easy to clean up. They had made $124! True, $70 of that was money they had overspent for decorations, but that still left a substantial profit. The other group ended up making the same profit on the brownies, though they ended up with a lot more ingredients than they could possibly use at home. I mean, the cocoa, sugar and eggs, yes, the flour, yes - but what were they going to do with all those packs of butter? Still - it was a lesson learned. We had told them to calculate their needs beforehand, as last year's students did. And they did make a good profit and the work itself went pretty smoothly, in between trying to find enough pans, baking paper, etc.
They hadn't thought to buy bags, so the brownies were neatly wrapped in paper towelling. They had to go back to class after Period 5, but Jasna brought her graphics class into the theory room and I helped a year 10 student, Rebecca, who had volunteered her time since her Hospitality class wasn't happening. We distributed most of the remaining brownies then and after school.
We do need to prepare a form for the students to take to teachers any time they need - note, NEED, not want - time off other classes. It will have to be signed by one of us and then by the teacher concerned and if the answer is no, it's no. We can't afford to get on our colleagues' wrong side; this is too important. That's what I have learned from this.
I went home, cooked dinner, had a shower and slumped into bed.
