If you open the cut–consider yourself warned. This is freakin huge. This is the evaluation part of what I am having my seniors do tomorrow. If I posted it all I would completely bury your friends page.

Victorians

It is a good thing to call the parents every so often and just say, “Your kid is doing great! Will you please encourage them to do the upcoming assignment?” Cause then the parents think you are awesome and caring and stuff. Really, it is just a front though. 😉

I just caught a student cheating on the vocabulary test.

I sent her to see the advisor. I told my class that the next time I catch someone cheating I will ask for suspension.

Today I stood in front of my class and I asked them, “Why do you think I had you do this assignment?” I got half-hearted “cause it will help us” responses. I absolutely went off. I told them that I do not give them assignments because I am trying to find a way to kill an hour of class. I told them that I do not go out looking for ways to torture them just because I find it amusing. Every single thing we do in this class is for YOUR benefit. The point of yesterday’s exercise was for everyone to become an expert on one word and help everyone else in the class understand that word and give them context for being able to remember the word later, oh… on the test on Monday maybe. Instead I got upset and pissy in class because most of the class was not working or paying attention. We wasted a class period on screwing around and now if anyone wants to pass the test I suggest that they study over the weekend. The students didn’t let me down, they let one another down and that is a really sad thing.

I told them that I have had complaints about the screwing around distracting people so that they can’t pay attention and learn in class. I told them that I don’t like coming down on people and writing up referals is not my idea of a good time. But if I allow the misbehavior to be the rule of the day in my class then I am failing each and every student because I am not giving them the opportunity to learn that I agreed to do as my job. If I do not teach my students then I have failed and I am unwilling to do that. So the talking and sleeping and lack of work will no longer be tolerated. I will have a stack of referals on my desk and I will no longer engage with the people who are refusing to participate in their education. I qualified that yes, I have some kids who are fully participating and doing everything as they should–this lecture is not directed at any of them.

Most of the class looked very chagrined. I think maybe they heard me. I’m crossing my fingers for Monday. (They were really good in class today.)

And I don’t mean that I am not smart. 🙂 Today is Princess day!!! So uhm… yeah… guess how into that I am. 🙂 *bounce* *giggle* I’ve been looking forward to this for two weeks. My kids know that I am dressing up, but… yeah. No one will expect a full ballgown with hoops and such. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY A day JUST FOR ME!!!!!!

*bounce*
(Think I will be able to talk my class into calling me Princess from now on? That would be so cool.)

I will try to post pictures later cause my hair is cool and my dress and…

I am on a ten minute break before my brain explodes. I have handed out two F’s and numerous D’s so far. A few C’s, a couple B’s and I don’t think I have an A yet. This is horrible. The F’s are because their papers are entirely plot summary–no analysis or opinion–and the plot summary is wrong, not to mention that they are nearly unreadable due to grammar and/or spelling screw ups. This is truly disturbing. Seniors. They are freakin seniors.

Tonight I have to catch up on all of the daily lesson plans for the past two weeks. I hate writing them down. I think it is retarded. *sigh* I also need to finish my journal and print out the stuff for my binders. I am going in hella early to get everything set up at the school. I will leave my house at 6am. It sucks to be me some days. I must say though… the grading is going better with the rum and pineapple soda. *evil grin* I may not finish them all tonight. I will have hours at school tomorrow. I will leave myself maybe three essays from *good* students to read tomorrow. I will torture myself with the other six crappy ones tonight.

I want to eat, but I am not hungry. I hate this feeling.

I haven’t been delivering on the promised school babble. I am exhausted and stressed and enjoying the hell out of my job. I am very confident that this is the right job for me. My kids rock my socks off and planning is… uhm… ok I guess. I am being observed tomorrow and the advisor is going to be unhappy because they are doing presentations. HA! Witch.. Tonight I have messsssssssssssloads of work to get done. I better get to it…

So! Today I was observed by my university supervisor and she ripped my ego into tiny little pieces. I don’t like this woman at all. Then I went and talked to the VP and to one of the advisors (this cool old guy who has worked for schools for almost 40 years–very smart mouth and all) and they went over her criticism and helped me to see them in ways that do not just amount to “You suck and you shouldn’t ruin children’s lives by being a teacher.” Thank god they are both so supportive and wonderful.

Then I had back to school night. It went great! I didn’t have a huge turn-out, only the parents of six kids out of thirty… However, the ones that showed up are obviously the ones who are really into their kids and care a lot about what is going on at the school. They were all very thrilled as I went through my policies and class requirements and they have all vowed to ask their kids at least once a week what book they are reading. {insert little happy hearts here} I was nervous, but it was totally smooth and awesome. I got to meet the parents of two of my biggest talkers and that was a lot of fun. Both sets of parents were delighted that I actually like their sassy, smart-mouth, exhuberent boys. Of course I like them! They are so much fun. Of course they require a lot of reminding about what task they should be working on… but that’s no big deal. 🙂

All in all it was awesome. Now I need to finish my lesson plan for tomorrow (make the handout) and pack for Folsom Fringe. Dear God I am tired and the very long and busy con weekend is just about to start…. AHHHHHHHHHH (Thank God Monday is going to be a total slide day for me in class.)

I will write the school update though. Cause yeah… I just will. 🙂

I had a gnarly situation this week with a student that lead to considerable angst. For the first several days in class he announced loudly that he wasn’t going to read and he didn’t care what I said about it. I tried calling his mom after class on Monday but she wasn’t home and he took a message. I called back on Tuesday… she hadn’t gotten the message. Turns out his mom is a wacko and before I could explain to her why I was calling she started yelling at him and I listened to a screaming match between them. I felt awful. He wasn’t actually in trouble with me. I was calling to ask him mom if she could please check with him in the evenings to see if he had reading homework and ask him to please do it. That was all I wanted to get across.

Wednesday and Thursday in class was a nightmare. The kid was willfully defiant and rude and just plain awful to me. He made a huge point out of letting everyone in the room know that he hated me and he wasn’t going to do the work. Friday started out even worse. He asked me a question in a nasty tone of voice and I let my temper get the better of me and I wasn’t very helpful in response. I had sent in a referal to the student/family center (our counseling center) the day before because I didn’t want to give him a referal for detention and just as he called me a bitch for not being helpful with his question in came a TA with a pass for him to leave class to talk to the student/family center. I gratefully handed him the pass and sent him out of class. Multiple students told me that he didn’t have the right to treat me that way and that he was not adequately provoked for that kind of behavior.

He came back into class with about 15 minutes left obviously with a huge chip still on his shoulder. The class was working silently on writing so I pulled him out of class. The first words out of my mouth were an apology. I told him at length why I called his mom, what my intentions were, and why I now know that it was a horrible idea and I feel really bad. He was visibly shocked. We talked for a few minutes about the mistakes I have made with him and I apologized again. He apologized for his behavior and explained why he was lashing out at me (his mom really is pretty crazy) and we agreed to start over with one another on Monday. I gave him permission to stay in at break any time something comes up that he is upset about. He was really surprised that when I do something that is messed up he can call me on it. I think things will be ok now. He really is a nice kid and I had been looking forward to working with him.

In other news:
My unit plan for short stories is basically done and I have figured out almost everything that I am doing for every other unit other than poetry. Poetry isn’t my thing and I am having a bitch of a time figuring out that unit. I also took over the senior class Friday. AHH!! For the next three weeks I am doing exactly what my master teacher wants done because I don’t want to change approaches with the kids mid-way through a book. That wouldn’t be fair. Then I take over and have them on my own for 12 weeks. 🙂 That is… if my school doesn’t add on another English class… and it looks like they will. oy. All of the senior Enligh classes have 34-37 kids in them and the teaching contract says 33 kids. This is a problem.

I started writers workshop this week and I am really blown away by how personal a lot of the writing was! I thought it was weird that I volunteered so much personal information with people I didn’t know well. Yeah right! I’m apparently normal. It is really cool to get to know the kids and I think this year is going to be so much fun!

This weekend my goal is to get all of the assignments and rubrics done for this unit so that I can make all of my overheads and copies on Tuesday when I will have extra time on campus. Then I won’t have to be so worried about arriving as early in the mornings. 🙂

I have managed to wear out my eyes. I have been reading pretty much non-stop for the last 6 hours. Now I can’t seem to focus.

I have the year outline done and I am set for Monday. I’m going to call it a day and give my eyes a break.

Yes. I really am a morning person. I woke up (without the alarm) at 6:20. I could have gotten ready for work in that time, but I need to try and encourage my body to get up a little earlier. By the end of next week I won’t need an alarm again.

I have already sent numerous emails that are work related and now I am going to start grading. When I finish: curriculum! I have a whole year to plan. My goal is to have the rough sketch for the entire year done by 10 so that I can be done before I go hiking with friends today. 🙂 Yes. I am a nerd. And an over-achiever. What is your point?!

Tomorrow I get to put together my next two unit plans. Short stories for the next three weeks and The Crucible for the six weeks after that.

I am going to be babbling about school a LOT. Do you actually want to hear this? I will be merciful and let people opt-in at this point. 😉 Standard disclaimer: If you don’t OPT IN you won’t be added. I’m kind that way.