End of the streak...

So my streak of not writing up students ended last week. We had a tardy lockout and one of my students told me that if I did not let him in that he would not come to class. I didn't let him in and he was true to his word. What he didn't know is that I would make him pay a price for ditching my class. So I wrote him up and he got dean's detention anyway, which is what he would have gotten had he simply taken his ticket to detention. Id10t.

Speaking of id10ts there is second period, THAT class. I totally rearranged my room because they could not handle the way it was before. I gave two students detention last week because they would not shut their mouths, and that didn't help. So today I informed them that because they insist on acting like little kids I would treat them like little kids and the next time one of them opens their mouth they get detention. Mind you this is also my worst class academically as well. 2/3 of them are failing right now and they don't seem to care. Mass detentions seem to be in order for them.

That reminds me I have to write up another brain sturgeon (you guessed it 2nd period) for skipping two of my detentions. Now he is the dean's problem. The school policy is that students can reschedule one detention but once they blow that one off, then it goes to the dean's office.

On the bright side, I have a guest speaker coming in tomorrow for National GIS Day and he is going to do a presentation on the conquest of Guatemala. It should be a welcome break for my students to hear someone other than me speak. And the short story literature circles in my honors class is going very well. They are working on their group power point presentations and for the most part they are going well. And the mystery boxes went very well with them. Hopefully 5th and 6th period will do well with their mystery boxes as well.

What I really hope for is a turnaround for 2nd period. We'll see...

The Big Red Binder

Tomorrow I have my meeting with my AP regarding my Big Red Binder. For those of you who don't teach in Las Vegas let me explain. The Big Red Binder is where you keep your lesson plans, your attendance sheets and other related items. To the administration and the district, The Big Red Binder is a very big deal. They are supposed to be able to come into your room while you are teaching, open up The Big Red Binder and follow along with the lesson via the plans. Your attendance sheets are supposed to be uber accurate as well so you end up having to write in new students and crossing out the ones that have dropped your class in pen. The school prints out new sheets on a monthly basis to reflect your enrollment. Some schools also have you put your sub plans in there as well. I'm not sure if I have to do it here but I have the room. Did I mention the binders are BIG? Like with those huge 5 inch rings big. So for the last two days I have been putting The Big Red Binder in order. Now I did have the lesson plans in there already but I split them into the three sections and rearranged the order to make it easier to read. I also put in all the attendance print outs and tomorrow during my prep I'll go through the most recent one and add the new students while crossing out the ones who are no longer there. Hopefully I will have done it correctly. We'll see. I also need to finish up my emergency sub plans. I have four of the five days done and I should have the last one done tonight.

In other news I finished The Yellow Wallpaper with the two classes who were reading it. I am SO doing this story every year. The students seemed to enjoy it, even if they were grossed out and a bit confused at times. The honors kids also enjoyed hearing about why she wrote the story, although my other class would not shut up long enough for me to let them know so they missed out.

Finally I started calling parents tonight. One call was to check in on a suspended student to see if they needed more homework. One was because the kid wanted to sleep in class for the last two days and the last was because he likes to wear his pants below his buttocks. Tomorrow will be round two of the calls.

Quarter 1

Is done and in the books. Today I asked my students to write about what went right and wrong for them in the last eight weeks. Among the usual things such as not liking their seats, boring stories and promising to try harder next quarter, I saw a couple of interesting things. One of the first things that I noticed with some concern is the fact that the students think the class is easy. I am glad that I had only a few students fail, but I am concerned that they didn't really earn their grades. Now I know a couple of students mentioned that I explain things really well so they don't get confused but I worry at the thought of easy. Is it easy because I explain the lessons so well or is it easy because my standards are too low? I want them to succeed but I want them to learn. I didn't do a bunch of big projects for most of my classes but I will do more this quarter than just the active reading and the narrative.

The other thing was the response I got from a student who said "You make me like English!"

And that is why I teach.

Hey Mister!

I hate getting a cold. It's bad enough when you have a regular job, but it really sucks when you're a teacher. You can't go through the motions or just call in sick. That means a wasted instructional day and they're precious enough as it is. So this week has been a bit of a challenge to say the least. Fortunately most of my students got the hint about me not putting up with any crap due to my sickness.

And even more fortunately for me, I had the audio version of the story we were reading. "The Cask of Amontillado" so I could simply play the mp3 file and then stop it to have quick discussions. Today I was planning on just finishing the last few minutes and then doing a catch up day. That changed when my AP showed up unannounced to observe me for most of the period. I instantly switched gears (good thing I had not announced my plan) and actually taught the rest of the story along with the audio file. The class did really well today and we had a good discussion.

Near the end of class while the AP was writing furiously in her notes with her head on her arm a student on the other side of the classroom raised his hand to ask a question and when I walked over to him to see what the problem was, he looked over at the AP (Assistant Principal) and said quite seriously, "Hey Mister, why is that lady sleeping?". With a concealed smile I told him that she was awake and was writing some notes. That seemed to satisfy him and he went back to work. When I saw my AP later in the day I relayed the conversation to her and she got a big grin out of it as she headed off to lunch duty.

It was not until later that I realized that the unspoken question was really "Hey Mister, why are you letting her sleep?" I'm infamous for kicking desks to wake up students who are sleeping. Although I have occasionally let sick students alone. I'm firm not a monster after all and the students are pretty good about knowing the difference between the two.

So far that has been the funniest thing that's happened this year!

Gah

So I was talking to my DC today and he had some bad news. Apparently those tests that I had my students take for the last two days were the wrong ones. Oh, they were English I tests and they were most certainly the interim tests for the fall, the problem is that they were the wrong year. Of course nobody told either the DC or the AP. The county finally got around to sending us the right books. Nice, huh? Now all my students have to retake the test a second time which means I lose two more instructional days because of this snafu. Now I am a bit annoyed but what can I do? Yell and scream? That would be your tax dollars at work for you.

At least the quarter is ending on the 21st of this month and then we start everything again. I am so glad I had that internship last year because I'm not nearly as flustered as I would have been had this been my first year. And I get a three day weekend at the end of the month due to Nevada Day! I'll take it!

Flexibility

It's a must have for teachers. You have to be able to adapt your lessons on the fly and be able to reschedule interm assessments from next week to say... tomorrow and Wednesday. Yea, gotta love the schedule shuffling by the powers that be. But I was the good soldier in the hope that when I need some consideration that I'll get it. Plus my Department Chair promised me that this would not haunt me come evaluation time. So after I was done complaining (just so I'd feel better) to my DC, I realized as I was driving home that this could actually work to my advantage.

I am desperately behind on my grading and filing and having two whole days where my students aren't actually turning anything in will give me the chance to get caught up on both. And it will also allow me to get the lessons I had planned over the weekend fine tuned and the copies of the graphic organizers made so I can continue the lessons on active reading.

Finally, my room is all decorated for Halloween and the kids thought it was really cool that I took the time to decorate my room. Apparently I was one of the few teachers who did decorate their classrooms. And if they think it looks cool now, wait until Christmas!

Halloween

Halloween is coming up shortly and my room is almost decorated. I had to run to the Dollar Tree to pick up just a few more things for my back wall which is almost totally bare at this point. The rest of the room looks pretty good. I have up the fake cobwebs in areas that cannot be easily reached by the students, the window clings, my Peanuts Great Pumpkin Display, spiders, skulls and various other items to add some atmosphere to my room.

I just need to find my spooky sounds CD so I can put it on my PC at school so when we read our short stories I can have a bit of extra atmosphere. The stories I am planning on doing this month are "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" . I had been thinking about doing "The Telltale Heart", but I didn't want to subject them to that story yet again, nor did I have enough copies of "Dracula", "Frankenstein" or any of the other classics of the horror genre to use in the classroom. In addition, I don't want to overdo it when it comes to reading fiction so I'm also mixing in some current events articles ranging from sports to news and politics. I still have not had time to chase down anything relating to music etc, but I will at some point.

Since we celebrate Nevada Day the last Friday of October I'll be showing "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" the last half of class on the 29th just to give the kids a short break.

No, no costumes for me, I'm scary enough as it is...