Had a better day today. Pretty much back to normal.

The big event today seemed to be that one of my students sneezed when he was working in his writing spiral and apperently a big wad of snot came out and landed on his paper. He had to tear it out and throw it away but he and some people around him could not stop laughing. It got to the point where I had to have one go sit at a desk against the wall and another to go outside and get control of herself. It was kinda funny though. I almost laughed myself.

I think I have a kid who is suffering panic attacks. That stinks that an 8 year old is dealing with that kind of thing. His mother knows and says he's going to see a doctor. I hope he does because he needs help. He cries often and gets stomach aches...and I'm pretty sure they're not the fake "I want attention kind." I really feel for the kid. I think math is what he worries about the most but I don't teach that.

The cool thing though is that now that I'm a teacher and I spend this much time with these kids every day I'm already starting to feel really involved in their lives. They tell me about things that they are dealing with like one of my girls who just wanted to inform me this morning that sometimes she cries and her stomach hurts because her mom is in the hospital and it worries her. I guess she felt like she might start crying during class or something and she wanted to let me know why. She did fine though. All I can do is offer them comfort and prayers and I do pray for them.

I was reading over some of their original writings today. I have this one kid who is really far behind but he seems bright and I think it's just due to a poor education that he previously got in Podunk, Utah (this is also after talking to his mom about it). I think he'll be able to catch up but right now he's relying totally on phonics to write and it shows. A lot of words are misspelled pretty much like they sound. I have another student who writes with no periods or capitalizations. Just long strings of words. Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on one long piece of paper with no punctuation and he was a quirky genius. Sorry, kid, you're no Jack Kerouac.

The good news (I guess?) is that I'm teaching in a way that should work to improve their writing and spelling according to my textbooks. I guess we'll see. One thing I think I need to start doing is have them write in a journal in class every day. I'm already so pressed for time though...we'll see.

Ok, I'm out. My wife is gone and I'm home alone so it must be time to play video games.