DigMe the Teacher

2006-11-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

This past week was somewhat rollercoasterish. Thursday I had to deal with a parent who...well I don't like to say too much on this blog about negative things that happen but let's say that this parent had some unusual ideas about how his or her child should be taught and treated at school and some unusual expectations on what the teacher should be doing. I got pretty worked up about it and it ruined my entire day.

Friday was Teacher Appreciation Day. This is the day when some PTA mothers come and take over my class for an hour and a half and give the teachers an extended lunch break. While we're gone the teachers have the kids do something special for us. You may remember this day from last year in which young Theach declared me a god. This year the parents had the kids make a poster with me on which they wrote things and glued outlines of their hands. I didn't have anything so unusual as Theach but one girl did write "Dear Mr. ______, You're a fun nerd!"

Wow...I've got 4th graders labeling me a nerd. That can't be good. After that I mentioned something about being "white and nerdy" which comes from Weird Al's latest hit. The kids, including that girl, knew exactly what I was talking about so I started that song playing on my computer (from the link above) just for a few seconds...so they could hear the beginning of it. Several of them were impressed that I knew that song. A couple of girls were a little too impressed. One girl said "Mr. Cook, I'm going to tell me mom that you like that kind of music." I was puzzled by that and said "Ok." Then I realized that this girl probably thought the song I was playing to the class was the song "Ridin' Dirty" which "White and Nerdy" is a parody of. That would NOT be a good song to play to a 4th grade class so I immediately clarified with her that it was not the song that she thought it was. Just when I thought that was all cleared up I had an almost identical interaction with another student...wow...that really didn't work out well. Hopefully no kids will go home and tell their parents that I'm playing them dirty rap songs in class.

Anyway, when I came into the classroom after looking at the poster out in the hallway my kids swarmed me with hugs and cheers...as if I'd been gone for months. That was kind of out of control but it felt good to know they were glad to see me. Then I went to my desk and on my desk was a little "tree" in a vase that the mothers had made that had several gift cards hanging from it. The gift cards were to McD's, Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Chik-Fil-A. Being a total coffee snob I don't really go to Starbuck's so I gave that one to my wife. I'm not really a chicken snob or a burger snob so I'll use the others. Also, I'm not a "stuff that's made in China" snob either so I'll use the Wal-Mart card too.

I'm making jokes but I was really surprised and greatful to the kids and parents for that stuff. Oh, also yesterday another one of my students gave me a $15 gift card to a local deli that's a couple of blocks from my house. I'm feeling the love from the kids this week! It definitely made up for the phone call on Thursday.

Also this week was Halloween. The kids were completely amped up on the day before, the day of and the day after about that. The same girl who gave me the deli gift card brought me a gift on Halloween day too. I don't know that I've ever received a Halloween Gift. It was a candle and some candy. That was sweet of her.

I had three of my kids come trick-or-treating to my house. I thought I would have more.. I gave them my address so they could come. :( I did get two kids who looked like they could be linemen on the local high school football team (one of which had an enormous afro that did not appear to be part of a costume), two skinny white boys wearing hula skirts and coconut bras and a couple of kids wearing black overcoats who said, "We're school shooters!" Real funny, kid. How about dressing up as a terrorist next halloween. Maybe a shoebomber...or hey...go for broke and just be Bin Laden.

Halloween Night was an adventure too. At about 10pm I heard a crash outside. I ran out and saw that a car had wrecked into something in front of my neighbor's house and there were teenagers running away from it. I called the police and then went out to check on everything. Apparently they had hit a parked car and knocked it through a yard and up into another person's driveay. The people behind them saw teens run away and one of them grabbed a liquor bottle out of the car. The driver actually stayed. So...then the story really began. We were standing around looking at the car waiting for the cops when this white car full of people comes speeding up. As the car is still moving someone throws a door open and the door of the moving car slams into my neighbor. The car was full of friends and family of someone who was in the accident apparently. My neighbor goes ballistic and starts yelling at some of the women who poured out of the car who start yelling back at her and then basically the car-women attacked my neighbor. My neighbor's husband then jumps in and punching these chicks in the face. I'm not normally a proponent of men fighting women but these women were asking for it and I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing if my wife was attacked like that. Also, they were all bigger than his wife. Some of them were pretty burly.

Anyway, that kind of died down and the people all pile back into the white car and start to drive off as this 12-year-old girl is hanging out the window yelling F-words at everyone in sight. At that point I looked at my neighbor and said "When did our neighborhood become a trailer park?" (no offense to residents of trailer parks, but you know it's true!) So finally the police showed up after all that. They did a sobriety test on the 16-year-old driver and then cuffed him and put him in the car. They took some statements and were not at ALL interested in the fight. They were only taking statements on the wreck and the teens involved.

So there you go...the highlights from my crazy week.

I'll leave you with this image in honor of a bizarre week:

Out.

2006-10-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

The other day the mother of one of my kids emailed me and said "Jacob really looks up to you. The other day he asked me if we win the lottery can we buy you a present."

That day he brought me a golf ball as a present. It was a Titleist that had a "1" on it and he said he was giving it to me because "it says 'number one' on it." Ironically this is the kid who gets in trouble and doesn't have his homework the most. I like him though and I wish we could get him on track with his behavior and work. It's pretty humbling as a teacher to realize that there are kids who look up to you to the extent that some of them do.

At that point you just have to remind yourself that there are others who hate your guts.

Out.

2006-10-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

School has been going pretty well and it continues to be a good year. I lose track of any stories I would normally tell here though...I have the worst memory for stuff like that.

The other day though in our morning assembly the principal was giving away reading awards. This one 3rd grade girl gets an award and she's standing up there in front of everyone. I look at her shirt and it's a takeoff of the popular "I ♥ NY" shirts except it's from Kentucky and it says "I ♥ KY." At least I ASSUME it was from Kentucky...could be that she's just a fan of lubricants.

We went to our yearly high school pep rally not too long ago too. It was so freaking disorganized. Just random people standing out there doing random things. There's this one group of kids who are not pep squad and not cheerleaders and not...uh...theater group but they seem to be some sort of spirit based group except they seemed to be focused on expressing their spirit by doing weird things. Two of them came up to pump up the kids. One was walking around with a stickhorse between his legs the entire time. The other had a cane and one blue sock. How wacky! No one really got too pumped up.

At one point this group did some kind of skit out on the floor. Only, no one really thought to use microphones so you couldn't hear anything so people just kept talking. Finally halfway through they got a mic and it turned out that they'd written a song about football based on "The 12 Days of Christmas." Also at that point everyone realized we would have been better off if they had not found the mic.

Before the pep rally some of the high school kids took some of the 4th graders down on the gym floor. They were having them dance. Some of these kids were doing some pretty funny dances. One of them was standing out there doing violent and enthusiastic pelvic pumps. Then I looked over at one point and one of the high school cheerleaders was down there teaching another 4th grader how to do this incredibly inappropriate ghetto booty dance that looked...well...just wrong for anyone to be doing in public, much less a 4th grader. Idiots.

Ah yes...the cheerleaders. I'm told that at some point cheerleaders may have served some purpose. Their only purpose now seems to be to stretch out very seriously on the gym floor for 20 minutes before the pep rally. They must stretch because it's very easy to pull something when you are making the signal for "LOOK AT ME!!" Apparently the Look-at-me signal involves lots of jumping and your hands extended over your head. Occasionally the Look-at-me signal is transformed into a group "LOOK AT HER!!" signal which is performed by several others holding one up in the air while she signals "LOOK AT ME!!" It's all very complicated.

The cheerleaders came to our school and performed in morning assembly the next week. I don't know what the deal is...last year our kids were really pumped up when the cheerleaders came but this year's bunch seems to be some kind of vampire cheerleaders. They came in and sucked the spirit out of the kids in the gym. It was baaaad.

Later.

2006-10-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I didn't really get it updated last week...maybe I'll try to get it done THIS week. No really.

2006-10-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

I should really update this thing. Maybe I'll try to do that this week.

2006-08-31T20:10:00.000-07:00

Crickets. I'm getting pretty ticked off at crickets.

The crickets are swarming now..everywhere, including in my classroom. Every time one crawls out it seems that I lose the attention of the whole class. It's really annoying. The reactions range from curious staring to screams of terror. Dang crickets.

The other day we were reviewing the 4 natural regions of our state. One of the regions is the High Plains. I was writing them on the board. I wrote them up there and turned around. When I turned back around to look I realized I'd written "High Plains Drifter" on the board and was completely unaware of it. I guess I've seen too many Clint Eastwood movies.

This morning during reading time someone was passing gas the whole time I was reading to them. Silent but deadly. The whole reading area just reeked. These kids are little fart machines.

2006-08-21T20:10:00.001-07:00

Tonight was parents night. Last year this lasted one hour total. It's supposed to go from 6:30 to 7:30. This year they kept the parents down in the cafeteria being talked to by the principal, the music teacher, the PE teacher and the PTA president so that they didn't even get up to our rooms (where they're supposed to endure another meeting, which is supposed to be the focus of the whole night) until after 7:30. So that really stunk for those that had only booked babysitters until 7:30 as well as for those of us who had dinner and spouses waiting at home (just to clarify, I only have one spouse).

This afternoon I started feeling really light-headed for some reason. I started walking down the hallway to go get my class from PE and suddenly the hallway started moving and I had to lean against a wall. I don't know what the deal was. I was able to go get my class and stay with them until the dismissal bell but I continued to feel like that for an hour and a half. I had my blood pressure and blood sugar checked and they were both fine. It was weird..that's never happened before. I think it might possibly be due to fatigue.

This morning I had the kids reading out loud out of their social studies book. This one kid started reading and he just went nonstop, zooming through periods and all. So I stopped him and said "I need to hear the punctuation when you read!" meaning he needs to pause with periods etc... So he started back up again, got to the end of the sentence and said "period." I laughed but he seemed kind of embarrassed. Ok, I need to go address that fatigue I mentioned right now.

Good night.

2006-08-18T05:18:00.000-07:00

The first two days have gone very well. Yesterday there was an incident that was a little sad though. I was asking the kids in the other class that I trade with to each tell me something interesting about themselves. One kid raised his hand and said "My mom said that some day we'll move into an apartment with air-conditioning." The highs around here have been over 100 degrees for the last few days. I can't imagine... He then said "Last week my dad got paid and he took my sister and I somewhere." I said "Where'd he take you?" (in hindsight I shouldn't have asked) He said "Long John Silver's."

Yeseterday the girl that sits next to my super-hyper kid raised her hand and said "He called me a dead cow somethingorother" (didn't catch the last part but it was pretty creative). The hyper kid immediately said "I DIDN'T SAY THAT!!" I looked at him and said "So she raised her hand so she could lie about you calling her a dead cow somethingorother?" He looked at me for a minute and then lowered his head and said "I said it."

He's always bothering this poor, sweet little girl that sits next to him. I may have to move him so he's not sitting next to anyone.

Anyway, two good days so far.

2006-08-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, I do have one somewhat amusing story. The talky kid (who wrote on his info sheet today that his favorite animal is a Liger) told me that his granddad was an archaeologist who died as a result of an ancient booby trap at an old, forbidden ruins. Now, I guess if that's true it's not funny but he said a LOT of things today that make me feel it's probably not true. I'm tempted to ask his mom though..

2006-08-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day. I think it went very well. I seem to have some real sweet kids in my class. There is one though who has some real hyperactivity and attention issues. He talks NONSTOP. Seriously...it's just constant. He also doesn't want to do any work and he seems to try and do things to sort of sneak out of it already. I wouldn't say he's a bad kid (At least not yet), he just has some issues that are probably out of his control.

I can't really think of anything funny to share from today. It is so freaking HOT this week! I had to wear a tie today and we were doing afternoon duty and the heat was just oppressive. Mrs. Principal said we can wear jeans the next two days though. That means I can wear a t-shirt too. YES! That will be much better than the button-down and tie. At least our AC works...after all, we DO have the oldest building of any in our district.

later

2006-08-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a sort of meet-and-greet kind of thing where the kids and their parents come and go, bring supplies and the parents fill out forms.

One of the mothers told me that she heard a couple of students telling some other students that I'm "the meanest teacher in the whole school." The only thing I have to say to that:

Mission Accomplished.

2006-08-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

I was setting up my phone in my new room yesterday and realized that there were all these new ringtones available on my classroom phone that were not previously there. Someone over in the technology dept. must have been bored. I could choose from various tones including clips of songs from Jay- Z, Method Man, Homer Simpson's "DOH!", Bart Simpson saying "Ay Carumba", Curly from the Three Stooges going "Whooop, whoop, whoop...", the alien notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dubya saying "God bless Amurica," etc... I ended up choosing the opening notes of the song "Two Turntables and a Microphone" by Beck. It's pretty laid back sounding. I dig it.

So anyway, the ringtones were a cause of excitement. That's how exciting my day was..it was mostly full of meetings. Late.

2006-08-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

Summer is over. :( School is about to start back up again. I've been trying to stay awake in meetings all week plus organize and decorate my new room (Which isn't any prettier than my old room, btw). I don't really know how often I'll update my blog this year. Maybe every once in a while. I don't know. Anyway, although I hate to say goodbye to summer I am kind of excited to start a new year. Wish me luck!

2006-05-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

Thursday we went skating with the entire 4th grade as our end-of-year party. It was really a blast. I got some inline skates and the kids were pretty impressed with my skating skills. I used to play roller hockey. The kids were pretty funny though. Just stopping by falling down or running into someone. Most of the songs were classics...like "Thriller."

At one point they played the Foo Fighters' song "My Hero" that has a chorus that sings "There goes my hero, watch him as he goes!" I told a couple of my coworkers that some of the kids requested the song as a dedication to me. Later on I suddenly hear the DJ say "Where is Mr. ____?!"(me) Then he said "Here's a song dedicated to you from the students." The song was the ultra-cheesy "You're the Inspiration" by Chicago. Of course, it was my coworkers that had them play it.

Clearly they are jealous.

2006-05-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of school. It was a crazy day. I was on my feet and going nonstop for many hours. It took me a while to decompress afterwards. I was seriously just on full throttle all day.

This morning we had a kickball tournament. My class completely demolished every team. They just scored one run after another and won at least one game by more than 10 points.

After that they had lunch. Any time they had down time I was trying to get my room together. I'm changing to a different room so I have to move all my stuff.

The kids went to PE and I gobbled down some mexican food made by our custodial staff. That was nice. Then I went back to getting stuff together, trying to get report cards and everything else ready to pass out to the kids, etc...

At the end of the day I had a reflection time with them. They recalled their favorite things about the year, etc. Then I asked them if they could have changed one thing about the year what would it be. One kid pointed to this shelf that was a mess of games and puzzles. I said "What about it?" and he said "Organize it." Then another kid piped in with "Yeah, you need to be more organized." Ouch! I guess I've been shamed into action...at least I hope I have. Organization is not my strong suit.

After that I finished getting the report cards together, gave them out with a hug to each kid and said goodbye. Later on that afternoon some of the girls from the after-school program came back up and they were all crying. They came up to me all hugging me and just crying. Awwwwww.. A couple of them weren't even in my class.

One year down.

Mr. DigMe

2006-05-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not promising anything here but I'll try to do an end of year wrap-up this week. Maybe share some reflections and some stories from the the last couple of crazy weeks. It HAS been crazy. I don't have time for that this morning though. Sorry for just dropping off here... It's tough to keep one of these things going. At least it is for a slacker like me!

Mr. DigMe

2006-05-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

Our trip to the big history and culture museum in our state capitol today was an adventure.

More at 10.

2006-04-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hey look! I'm posting twice in one week!

This morning we took the kids over to the high school to check out some exhibits and presentations by kids in the FFA (Future Farmers of America). We started out learning about some plants. Then we saw a welding demo. Then after that we came to some kids who were displaying their sheep. They had two adult ewes. One of them had two little cute baby lambs. The high school boy who was there couldn't wait to tell the kids "Now if you show a ram you have to have it castrated. Do you kids know what castration is?!" Sheesh..don't they screen these presentations?!

The next display was about poultry and these two boys had three chickens and two ducks with them. One boy looked like he reached into his dad's closet and pulled out the oldest, ugliest and widest tie he could possibly find. Then it looked like had a blind guy with no fingers tie it for him. His collar was all sticking up on one side and he was wearing this tie and button down shirt with jeans and tennis shoes. He told us this completely pointless story about how a duck pecked him once at a pond. Then he told us another pointless story about how one time his sister went back to that same pond and a duck tried to peck her as well. Wow..I think the kids really learned a lot about poultry through those stories.

After that we went to a lesson on wildlife which mostly consisted of displaying various works of taxidermy. There was a coyote head, a deer mount, two ducks, a quail and a bighorn sheep skull. They didn't have much to say. They mostly just let the kids look at and touch all the dead animals. Then they went to a presentation on crops. Mostly there they played a game with a piece of wheat that didn't have much to do with crops except they used a piece of wheat where they normally would have used a ball or something.

After that they went to another presentation on cattle. The students just had three signs they wrote up about cattle. That one was kind of lame. Also they misspelled stomach as "stomic" and hamburger as "hamberger." Sheesh.. Then the kids went to a presentation on horses. They had a horse in a trailer with her foal and that was cool because the kids got to touch it. But one of the girls was a presentation nazi. Very demanding and in control. Grabbing kids and putting them where she wanted them instead of just telling them where to go. One of those types that should avoid caffeine.

Lastly we hung with the goats. They had a mama goat and her two kids. The kids lined up and each fed her a handful of corn. Then we left. That was fun for the kids and kind of interesting. Some of the high school kids were pretty funny (unintentionally) too. I'm glad those days are over!

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful except for one of my kids getting another in a headlock and then a chokehold in the bathroom at one point because he found the other kids finger-snapping annoying. Tomorrow we have a visit by an author that will come and read to the kids.

Next week we have our big field trip to Austin. Should be quite a day.

Later.

2006-04-24T04:59:00.000-07:00

Yo. I really am going to try to post this week. I don't know what happened last week. I just never remembered to post at a time when I could do it. I'll try and do better this time.

The standardized tests are over now. Whew! Glad that's done with. Now the circus starts. It seems like every week from here until the end of school we have multiple activities going on. This week we have some intermediate school kids coming to read to our classes for 2 hours one day, we have the nutrition puppet/lunchroom mascot doing a show one day, we have some author visiting and reading to the kids one day, etc... Coming up we've got parties, field day, field trips and so on... So hopefully all this stuff might make for some interesting blog posts.

So you stay tuned and I'll try to as well.

2006-04-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, dear blog reader (and I do mean that in the singular). Forgive me for neglecting you last week. It was a crazy, three day week of last minute preparation for our state standardized test before we took off for a 4 day Easter weekend.

Of course I can barely remember my day for 24 hours so I don't really remember much from last week.

Oh yeah, here's a little ditty I forgot to tell you about. The week before last we were discussing tornadoes and one of my students raised his hand and said "Why is it that, you know, tornadoes always go to where trailer parks are?" As if trailer parks somehow inherently attract tornadoes.

If you just read that and thought to yourself "Yeah, why is that?" then please don't read my blog anymore.

I'll try to be better about updates this week. I honestly really just forgot last week.

Later.

2006-04-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

Today was looooong and I don't have much to say. I left this morning, had a very busy day and a long parent conference during my conference period, then I had tutoring on my own since the other teacher was home with a sick kid, then immediately after tutoring I had to be at my continuing education class for my teacher training from 5 to 9. Then when I got home at 9pm the dog belonging to the people behind us had torn another board out of their fence and come over to our yard and drug all of our stuff everywhere. So I had to go over there and talk to them about it and then I fixed the fence and then I finally sat down to talk to my wife a little bit. Now you know why I don't really feel like posting much today.

later.

2006-04-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

Today was kind of odd. It started out this morning by one of the teachers telling me that Friday afternoon they found a curse word written in feces on the bathroom wall. One of my kids is a prime suspect. I think he was trying to convey his feelings towards his math teacher. Great. That gives a whole new meaning to "talking out of your butt."

Then this morning we were working on standardized test practice stuff in class, nothing out of the ordinary, when one of my kids called me over. He said "I think I got a little nervous and I had an accident." Oops. The poor guy had wet his pants right there in the classroom. I tried to be as discrete as possible about getting him out of the class but I think some of the other kids saw. Luckily he's in a class that is really pretty sensitive as a whole. That's good because he's a pretty anxious kid. I felt bad for him. He left a puddle in the chair.

Remember my boy who wrote the story about kissing a boy from the viewpoint of a girl and then made some other boys mad by blowing kisses at them? I found out today that he wants to be in the Navy.

Well, that's about all I've got. Later.

2006-03-30T21:38:00.000-08:00

Today was fine. Nothing real exciting happened.

Yesterday, one of my kids who is habitually tardy was tardy yet again. When a student is tardy they have to get a tardy pass from the front office and on the excuse line of the tardy pass the lady in the front office writes exactly what the student says.

Yesterday my habitually tardy student handed me a tardy pass that said "Washed hair too long." That should really be an excused tardy. I mean, who hasn't ever started washing their hair and gotten carried away and then the next thing you know an hour has flown by?

It occurred to me though that this wasn't the first unusual excuse this student had so I started looking back through all her other tardy slips from the past and here are some of the other excuses she's had. All from the same student:

"took a shower too long." (this personal grooming is really getting to be a problem)
"Mom can't see the road." (I don't think I understand that one at all)
"dad driving slow." (what was he? Driving a snail? "Heeya!")

I came across some other unusual tardy excuses from this year too. These are from various other students:
"Mom threw up on bag."
"Had a hard time finding stuff." (Can't go to school without "stuff"!)
"Sister trying to get money."

Thought you might enjoy some of those. That's all.

2006-03-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

Now I dutifully report back to you on "The Power Team." It started with the first introduction set to techno music. The first member to appear was a barrel-chested young man named Jacob who played football at Arizona St. Then he introduced the second guy. There turned out to only be 2 of them. The second guy was 6'6" and 250lbs. Apparently he played basketball for the Celtics at one point. I think they said his name was Jack something.

So they came out and pumped the kids up and then they basically started destroying things in short order. First up was 3 cans of Diet 7Up. Big Jack would squeeze them between his hands until they burst on some unlucky kids. When he did this to the last can the top half of it burst off completely, flew through the air and landed at my feet with a splash of Diet 7UP that went all over me. Yeah. I can tell you this - nothing pumps you up like starting off your day doused in soda. Then came the phone book. Jacob tore a phone book in half. I think it would have been more impressive in a larger city. After that Jack was back. He took a frying pan in his hands and rolled it right up like a burrito. Then Jacob came back on the scene - he took an iron bar and held it in his teeth while he bent it into a pretzel. Then Jack gave a motivational talk about achieving "your hopes and dreams." "Your hopes and dreams," was a phrase that I heard many times this morning. It was fairly entertaining and he integrated one of the 4th grade students into the action. After that the finale was Jack breaking a baseball bat in half. That was pretty much it. The kids loved it.

The first pic you see here is Jack rolling up the pan. The next is Jacob with the bar in his teeth and the last is Jacob with the bent bar.

The rest of my day was fine. I had one kid who was obsessed with trying to come up with how every feat these guys performed was somehow rigged.

That's about all I've got. Tomorrow, if I have nothing else interesting to report, I'll give you my tardy excuses "greatest hits."

later.

2006-03-28T20:44:00.000-08:00

Forget yesterday's post. If you don't get it then it's not for you.

I want to say again happy belated birthday to my dad. I already said happy belated birthday to him over the phone. Happy 74th, dad.

Today in class I somehow got off on a tangent and started recalling to my students going to the rodeo as a child and watching a monkey ride a dog. The dog had a saddle which also worked to strap the monkey in and basically attach the monkey to the dog. The monkey was dressed like a cowboy and the dog would come speeding out and around the arena with the monkey bent over like a jockey, riding away and no doubt thinking about how lucky he is to be speeding around an arena on a dog wearing a humiliatingly ridiculous cowboy costume instead of lounging around in the jungle eating dumb 'ol bananas. Anyway, my point in telling this is what the kids said. One kid said "What if it was a frog riding a goat?!" or something like that and then all the other kids started offering up suggestions of animals they would like to see riding around an arena on another animal. At the very end it got quiet and one girl said "I'd like to see a cow riding a bull." I wanted to tell her that if she cruised around in the country she'd very likely see vice-versa but of course I did not.

Tomorrow "The Power Team" is coming to our school. They're a group of strongmen who perform amazing feats of strength and share a motivational message. They're a Christian group but I don't know if they'll be sharing a Christian message tomorrow since it's a public school. I'm psyched though. I think it'll be cheesy and I LOVE cheese. I'm sure my boys will be obsessed with their muscles for the rest of the day. I have one kid who things he's a muscle man but is not anywhere near that. Skinny as a rail. He was walking around today trying to make his chest look puffed up. Really he just looked like he was possibly struggling with a sudden onset of scoliosis or something.

Well, that's all. I'm out. I'll report back on "The Power Team" tomorrow.

2006-03-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

Is there anything more annoying than a cheeky commie?

2006-03-23T19:47:00.000-08:00

Oops, forgot to post yesterday. I had some story or something I wanted to share too but now I forgot what it was. Maybe it'll come back to me.

Today was ok. This morning we went to the computer lab. These kids are incapable of clicking on a folder without accidentally moving that folder into another folder. They did that with the 4th grade networked folders like 3 times this morning. That was getting old. Then when I had them pull up clip art to put into our powerpoint presentation 5 or 6 of the computers froze up. Annoying.

I forgot that it was my day on duty to go out and watch the kids during recess. We've had a cold front this week and it was cold and windy out there and I only had a thin jacket on. I cut recess short by almost half the time. The aide that was with me and I were freezing.

Today was report card day. That always makes for a super-hectic conference period. I always barely get everything together and out but I somehow manage.

This morning I made sure to stand far away from the teacher who I mentioned in my last post. I could still smell her though...

2006-03-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

There is a particular faculty member at my school who I really don't enjoy standing by during our morning assembly. She's a nice person but there are several things going on here:

1. She has NO sense of humor. I don't mean that she doesn't think my jokes are funny - I mean that she absolutely seems to have no sense of when I'm joking or being serious. I'll say something absolutely outlandish and she'll respond as if I'm serious. I've stopped making jokes with her now lest I get in trouble with her taking me seriously.

2. Her singing - Her voice is just fine but it's the pronunciations that are distracting. "And" becomes "ahhhnd." "Bless" becomes "blahhss," etc... I just can't sing with that stuff going on.

3. The Pledge of Allegiance - she always seems to say this slightly faster than everyone else around her. So I've got the entire gym saying it in one ear and her saying it slightly faster in the other and it just short-circuits me or something...I become unable to say it myself. It's like the part of my brain that causes speaking and the part that has the ability to follow rhythm just shut down. It's weird.

Again, this lady is really nice but these things just get me all disjointed. Also, today she was wearing a lotion or perfume that has this particular scent that I've never been able to stomach. It was real popular years ago and (thankfully) has become less so but today it was very strong right next to me in the gym. I don't know how to describe the smell but why someone ever put it in a lotion or perfume is perplexing to me and why people continue to buy it is also perplexing.

I sound like a real jerk saying all that I guess but oh well.

The kids are really testing me this week it seems. Yesterday we were walking to PE and someone in line started to whistle. I said "If the whistling continues we're going to walk back up and try this again." It stopped until I turned around and someone whistled again...soooo... we walked back up the stairs and came down again. Then today one of my kids was just being real disruptive all day. At one point he just started making this random noise while I'm teaching. I warned him to stop and as soon as I turned away he made the noise again. I just went ahead and sent him to the vice principal for that because of some other ongoing things. That stuff is getting on my nerves. I don't know if these kids are starting to get spring fever or what...

later..

2006-03-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

First day back from spring break. Nothing seems to have really changed that much. Today was OK. I was rushing to get my grades in for report cards by 9am. That was kind of a hassle.

I spent some time reviewing science for a benchmark test that we're having next week. Mainly I did that because I didn't really have anything else planned. We needed to do it some anyway.

Nothing exciting really happened today. I had a pretty good spring break. Pretty relaxed. I didn't really want to go back today. I think our next holiday is about 4 weeks away. The week before Easter we get off on Thursday and Friday. I think that's right before a major standardized test. You gotta question that great timing.

That's about all I have to say today. Tune in tomorrow for more incredible blogging action.

2006-03-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

This has been an extremely hectic week. Friday is the end of the 9 weeks grading period and I didn't have any of my science assignments graded. So today was a mad rush to get that done and get missing assignments from students who hadn't turned them in etc...

Yesterday I had a "man-to-man" with one of my students. He's impossible to get through to. He doesn't seem to care about anything, his single father doesn't seem to care about much more than nitpicking everything we do, he smirks or laughs every time he gets in trouble. So I told him he was on his way to repeat fourth grade if things don't change. I asked him if he wanted things to change and if he wanted to make things better. He said "Yes." I asked him if that was honestly how he felt or if he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. He said he really felt like that.

So at the end of the day he was supposed to go to tutoring to help him pass the standardized tests they have to do. He didn't show up and one of my other kids said that he told him "I'm leaving, I don't give a crap."

Today I asked him why he didn't come to tutoring. He said "I don't know," and shrugged. I said "I heard it was because you don't give a crap. Yesterday you told me that you DO care. Which is it?" He looked me right in the eye (he never looks me in the eye) and said "I don't care."

That stinks. There seems to be nothing we can do to make him care or to get him on track. He has zero motivation. We're at a total loss. My partner teacher who has taught for twenty some odd years is at a loss, the counselor is at a loss as is the principal. All I can really do I guess is pray for this kid. It's pretty frustrating.

1 day until spring break.

2006-03-06T19:57:00.000-08:00

I'm getting observed tomorrow by a lady from the place where I received my teacher training. She always calls the night before and wants to come the next day. That kind of bugs me. Luckily this is the last of three required observations. Times like this make me wish I knew what the heck I was doing tomorrow.

4 days until spring break! Woohoo!

I've got a lot to do this week though because our 9 weeks grading period ends Friday. I've got to catch up on a lot of grading and makeup work, etc...

I had to take my car to the shop today so tomorrow I have to walk or ride my wife's bike to school. Luckily her bike doesn't look girly. She's pretty tall so I think she got a men's bike. That would suck if she had a pink bike with a basket and streamers on the grips...and a big banana seat. She has to be at work at some unGodly hour so she can't just drop me off at work.

later...

2006-03-02T18:17:00.000-08:00

This morning I had nothing clean and ironed to wear. Luckily I had a couple of "blue jeans" coupons. That's pathetic that going casual was the highlight of my day.

So the kids came in this morning and had a completely new desk arrangement and seats. I think I've mostly got good positions for everyone. I kind of broke up the cliques and whatnot. They were excited when they first came in and saw it but I think they weren't all that excited as each one saw who they were sitting next to.

I had to stay and do tutoring again today. The teacher I'm doing it with isn't all that into planning interesting stuff which means that so far we're just going through a workbook with the kids. I'm going to try and get some more interesting lessons together I think.

I think it's about time to make a general announcement to the class: "NO MORE NOSE-PICKING." If they were at all discreet about it then I would be ok but it's ridiculous. They'll hold one hand up in front of their nose and dig in with the other as if people can't tell what they're doing. Today a kid was doing that and eating the boogers. I have another kid I've mentioned before who routinely holds a book about an inch from his face while he picks his nose. C'mon, people. Save it for the bathroom or use a kleenex. One of my coworkers said she once sent a behavior folder home with marks for "Excessive nose picking."

That's all I've got.

2006-03-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

Had an ok day today. I took my class to the computer lab and they didn't screw up the computer network this time so that's always good. They were actually pretty good today.

After school I completely rearranged all the desks both as far as who each kid sits by and the arrangement of the desks in the room. I'm hoping this will help with the talking somewhat. I went from having them arranged all together table style to making a double layer U shape. Maybe that will help them focus. Maybe not.

I have to do after school tutoring again tomorrow. I think I have like 10 more weeks of this. Yippee.

Spring break is only 7 school days away.

2006-02-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

Another long day today, but I managed to stay awake this time...for the most part. I was starting to feel really drowsy in a grade-level meeting at the end of the day. I drank some coffee right at the end of the day too because I had to go do reading tutoring. We're now getting the kids ready for the reading and math standardized tests so I've got tutoring every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour.

This morning I got a somewhat unpleasant email from a parent who had obviously just gotten one side of the story on a few things from her kid (my student). It kind of got me worked up because it had some sort of ultimatums in it and she obviously did not even know the whole story. Then after sending me the email, and without waiting for a reply, she called the principal. So I had that on my mind all day. We had a conference all together after tutoring and got all that worked out. I think it went well. It's always a bit awkward going in but I think it came out ok. After that I had to go through a computer exercise that we're doing in class tomorrow. I got home close to 6:00. I still have a lot that I need to do. I brought some grading home and did that as well. Luckily most of my usual weeknight appointments that I normally have were cancelled this week.

I've told you about my kid who regularly picks his nose behind a book. I think I also told you about my kid who picks his nose and then licks his finger. Well today, I saw something else entirely different and bizarre. I think I saw one of my kids stick his finger in his belly button and then lick it. That's right - I've got a belly button lint eater. First time I've ever seen anything like that. Strange stuff.

The coffee roasting is going well, by the way. I spent some time working on it a lot while my wife was out of town snowboarding last week. I'm getting really good coffee fairly consistently now. Beats the heck outta the grocery store stuff, that's for sure...and don't even mention *bucks in the same sentence as home roasted coffee. Never been a fan of the * anyway.

2006-02-27T20:15:00.000-08:00

Today I felt like I was on narcotics all day or something. I was sooo sleepy. I was literally trying to keep my eyes open while talking to the class. I don't know why...I was in bed by 11pm last night, which isn't early but it's about normal for me. So anyway, it was a perfect day for the hour and a half faculty meeting that we had after school. I was nodding off for most of the time. I even drank a coke at the beginning (I've pretty much stopped drinking cokes) but it didn't help.

I did nod off a bit at my desk while the class was having some free reading time and I think one of my students saw me. That's kind of embarrassing.

Kids' logic is kind of funny. Today we were talking about alternative fuel sources to oil-based fuels and we talked about solar power and whatnot. They started trying to think of other fuel sources and one came up with "the propellor of a boat moving it through the water." Not even considering that a boat runs on gas...as if the propellor runs itself. I was like "Sheah...what are you? Retarded?" Not really.

2006-02-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

So today we are reading about finding clues from fossils. We get to the part about "ancient organisms" and one of my sweet ten year old students says "ancient orgasms." I just corrected her and moved on. I really hope that was a misread that happened to come off like that and not a Freudian slip!!

Later in a related exercise I gave them an illustration of several fossilized dinosaur footprints and had them make observations and come up with the story of what they think happened. I overheard one kid say "I think this one probably at that one.." and then " I don't know, I just get the feeling that something tragic happened here." That gave me a chuckle. Kind of reminds me of something that psychic midget from Poltergeist would say.

My class was a bit better behaved today despite some 3 of them throwing food in the cafeteria. In the early part of the day they got in line quietly and cooperatively and were somewhat calm. That's a big difference from usual. It got looser as the day went on but still better than the past few weeks for sure.

Ok, I'm out.

2006-02-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

So I got observed today by the boss lady. It went really great. She left me a note that said it was a lot of fun and she told me it was a pleasure to start out her day in there. That's a load off!

I'm glad she came to the class that comes to me for an hour and a half because (as I predicted) it went much smoother than my home room class...maturity levels and all.

Today, I taught my classes a new song I wrote for science. We're studying rocks. I took the tune of Queen's "We Will Rock You! and changed it to "We Know Rocks, Dude!" They loved it. The verses talk about the different type of rocks and whatnot. I had them beating the "We Will Rock" you rhythm/clap thing and some of those kids can't keep rhythm to save their lives. They also had a hard time with vocal rhythm. It comes so easy to me as a musician that I forget how undeveloped most of them probably are in that kind of stuff. I just repeated it and had them repeat a lot and they picked it up. Well, the first verse at least. I'll be teaching them the next few over the next couple of weeks.

Out.

2006-02-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

We went ahead with the test today. I think I was more nervous than my kids were. Espeically after I noticed that one of my kids was writing an essay that was utterly off topic from the writing prompt. He couldn't be more out in left field. After telling them beforehand that "You need to stay write about that topic," "stay focused on that topic like a laser," "write what the prompt tells you to write about," etc.. he's sitting there writing this (fairly bizarre) fictional story when the prompt was asking about a personal experience. I wanted to shake him and say "What are you doing?!!" Unfortunately, once they start I'm not allowed to give any guidance such as "You're not writing to the prompt." It's basically a wasted test and a wasted day for that kid who is otherwise an imaginative kid and a pretty good writer. That kind of stuff is frustrating. Also as I walked around I was noticing a lot of other kids completely ignoring things that we had focused on for so many months. It's just totally out of my control at that point no matter what I've done to prepare them.

After the test I wanted to let them relax a little so we played some games and had some fun. As usual though they lost all self-control once anything fun became involved and I cannot have a room full of screaming kids when there is still this testing going on around me in other rooms (or any other time for that matter). So I had to clamp down on that at the end and put them back to reading their library books. *sigh*

Anyway..that was my day. It's really gloomy today. It's been foggy and drizzly all day. I don't want to go work out. I don't want to do anything after today. Later.

2006-02-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

Well this is it. Today is the first of 3 "big days" as far as standardized testing goes (the other two aren't until the end of next month). It's still morning now. Today we test on writing. I'm really nervous. I just don't know which of my classes is going to show up today. My class is capable of doing well but sometimes there is a contingent that just wants to get through the test and doesn't really care about doing well.

They were kind of stressing me out yesterday too. I was just trying to review some basic stuff and they couldn't come up with the answers! That doesn't instill confidence in me.

I'm pretty much an optimist though. After all, it's just my job hanging in the balance at the whims of 10 year olds.

Have a great day!

2006-02-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

I think I've found a new method for controlling their talking in at least one place - the hallway. Today we were walking down the hall and they weren't behaving so I made them turn around, walk back upstairs to the room and try it again. They hated that and were perfect the second time. Too bad I can't do something like that in the classroom.

We started back on science today. We rotate social studies and science every four and a half weeks. Science is so much more fun and we actually had fun during that time I think. Tomorrow I hope to do an experiment or two. We're studying rocks. I started out by writing "Science ROCKS!" on the board and yelling that. They all cheered. I yelled it again and they sorta cheered a little. Then I said "No, seriously, science rocks." And I then placed a ':' on the board after science and handed out an info sheet on rocks. They got it after a few minutes. I'm cheesy, I know.

Just a couple of days until our first big official standardized test. Today the 4th grade teachers went to our little mandatory training on what we can and can't do in the test. It was actually kind of fun because we were joking around the whole time. I don't know if our instructor thought it was as funny as we did.

I'm nervous about this test. I don't know how my kids are going to do. I just hope mine aren't the worst ones.

That's about all I've got to say. Later.

2006-02-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

I don't really have anything to say today. The kids are still nutz. That's about it.

2006-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

Today was Valentine's Day if you didn't know. Me? Well, as an elementary school teacher it's impossible to not know that it's Valentine's Day. The kids all brought their valentine's cards today and passed them all out. We made bags yesterday so they'd have something to put them in. I was pretty proud of my handcrafted Mr. T Valentine's bag. Unfortunately none of my 4th graders knew who Mr. T was. Kids are so uncultured these days.

Luckily it seems that no one sent anyone any upsetting Valentine's Cards. I received cards of various themes including Star Wars, Bratz (whatever that is), Dr. Doom and one that featured what looked like a very angry pill (caplet style) with a mean look on his face saying something like "You're cool." That one was random. Maybe there is some cartoon that's popular now that has the adventures of various caplets. I don't know... Maybe you could follow one as he gets swallowed and then dissolves? Not much of an adventure.

I got lots of candy too. They're usually not allowed to give out candy but we're allowed three days a year and Valentine's Day was one of the days our school uses as their FMNV days. What? You don't know what FMNV stands for? Where have you been? It's "Foods of Minimal Nutritious Value" of course. No, I'm not making this stuff up. A kid can go to high school and eat nothing but pizza and fries every day courtesy of the school's cafeteria, but don't you dare let them give candy to another kid. Of course I don't work at a high school so at this stage the meals are usually still slightly more nutritious than pizza and fries every day. Since watching the documentary Super Size Me I just can't understand why more schools aren't doing like the one up in Wisconsin (or whatever God forsaken place that was) and serve fresh, healthy meals every day.

Well, I'm out. Happy V Day.

2006-02-13T15:53:00.000-08:00

The kids still seem to be in the same mode as last week. Lots of talking, not listening etc... I hope this doesn't last until the end of the school year.

Today we made Valentine's Day bags. Tomorrow they get to trade Valentines. I hope I don't have any people leaving kids out, writing ugly things on someone's card or writing actual "love notes" to each other. Even while hoping those things don't happen I'm guessing that all three probably will.

I made my Valentine's cards for the kids today. They're pretty dumb but the kids might find them funny. You wouldn't understand them at all because it's sort of an inside joke.

I'm getting observed by my principal next week. It's kind of weird. The people who trained me said when they send an observer don't put on a dog and pony show. Just teach as normal. When the vice principal came to observe me last semester I assumed the same went for her. It turned out though that they basically DO want a dog and pony show because they have to check off that you're doing all this stuff so they want you to do it all. So now I have to plan my dog and pony extravaganza for next Wednesday.

My days have been seemingly twice as busy over the past two weeks as they were before that period. I hope it slows down soon. There is just one thing after another. I had about zero free time today and my conference period and their recess seemed to be my busiest time of the day.

Well, I've gotta go now. I need to go wash my dog...maybe I'll groom the pony after that.

2006-02-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

Today I said my first curse word in front of my class. Yep. The 'C' word. "Crap."

Ok, so it's not really a curse word but by their reaction you'd have thought it was. I was in the middle of teaching and trying to have some discussion about writing and these kids at my middle table, which is ALWAYS where it seems to start were talking and doing whatever. I said something like "I'm so fed up with all this crap that is always going on at this table while I'm teaching." I immediately had visions of angry parents and I wished I hadn't said it. I apologized to them and said I should have used a different word but that I'm basically at the end of my rope with them this week. Anyway... I told some other 4th grade teachers and they didn't think much of it. One said she's said that before to her class and another said she once told a girl in her class to "Quit bitchin'." This is a 70 year old lady who's retiring after this year. She said that year that she had the daughter of one of the school board members in her class. I guess nothing ever came of it so I guess that bodes well for my little outburst. Really I don't feel that "crap" is a bad word myself (just not a pretty one) but these are 10 and 11 year olds.

I was a tad bit relieved today though to hear that it seems like whatever has gotten into my kids this week has infected the entire fourth grade. This morning I looked out in the hall during bathroom time and two of my kids are just kicking the snot out of each other. They spent their PE class in the vice principal's office doing deep knee bends. Then right after that another kid told me that one of my other kids tried to choke him. Sheesh...

Well, that's my day. Still didn't get everything done that I needed to get done today among all my other chores. Now I'm going to go veg in front of the TV and watch Beauty and the Geek.

Later.

2006-02-08T19:51:00.001-08:00

My last 3 days have been so incredibly busy. I haven't even had time to think about blogging. For the most part I've been away from home from 7:30-9:00ish every day. Bleh. I finally have some free time tomorrow after work but I really need to get to the gym...also I realized I have a headlight out on my car so I need to take care of that.

Anyway...school has been going ok. I've just been getting really sick of my entire class completely ignoring directions and whatnot this week. It's been getting really bad. I cracked down today and said anyone who doesn't follow directions the first time given will lose half of recess tomorrow. I gave out two of those and could have given out more. I don't get it. I've been starting out the days in a great mood, trying to be contagiously upbeat, but the kids just seem to be indifferent to it. I love my kids, I want to show them that, but sometimes I also just want to grab them and shake them just once. This is probably what it's like to have kids of your own to some extent.

I went and observed one of my fellow teachers teaching yesterday. He's really good with reading and writing. I liked one of his ideas so much that I went straight back to my class and did it with them. :)

Today was class picture day. You know..when we all take our picture together? One of my kids (one of my worst behaved) actually wore a full suit and patent leather shoes. Yeah, the suit was ill fitting and he was wearing white athletic socks but I was still impressed nonetheless. I had two other kids who wore ties. Maybe I can turn that into a tradition for my class as always being the sharpest looking class on class picture day. Next year I'll say "We looked the best last year so let's see if we can do it again this year," and see how many other kids wear ill-fitting suits and white athletic socks. He ditched the suit and put wadded the suit coat up in his backpack as soon as the picture was done. One of the other kids took his clip-on tie off and attached it to the back of his pants like a tail.

Ok, I'm out.

2006-02-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

A semi-rare Friday post.

Today a student asked me if "everything was black and white back in the old days?" Wow.

Another student asked me if I saw American Idol the other night when they were conducting auditions in a town that's not far away. I did not see it. He said that his mom missed it and "it's like a lifetime event because they're only an hour away." Wow.

That's all. Carry on.

2006-02-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

Today we were supposed to wear the colors of whatever team we were rooting for in the superbowl. I had on the shirt of my favorite team (Who, as I mentioned before, is NOT playing in the Superbowl) and was all set to go until my wife gives me this guilt trip about "What kind of example are you setting for your kids? That they can do anything they want?" So I ended up changing. Then I get to school and there are a TON of people wearing shirts supporting teams other than the Steelers or Seahawks. The sweetest little old lady in the school is wearing almost the exact shirt that I originally had on. Women...

I had a kid go home today with some kind of "highly infectious" medical condition. Crud... I was wishing I had some Lysol at school but there was none to be found...so I just burned his desk right there in the room. Was that rash? (technically it actually was a rash)

The coffee roaster that I ordered was sitting on my front porch this afternoon. I'm psyched. I read the instructions as well as the tips from www.sweetmarias.com and started roasting as soon as I could. I kind of under-roasted the first batch but the second and third look really good. You have to let them rest for 12 to 24 hours before you drink if you want them at their best. I'm going to try some tomorrow morning. I hope it's as good as it smells. Surprisingly though, the actual roasting doesn't smell all that great. Definitely doesn't smell like the finished product. It's kind of an earthy, grassy smell. It's cool though...really easy and it takes about 7 minutes per batch to roast. Today I roasted Costa Rican La Candelilla and Guetamalen Huehuetenanga.

Tomorrow I'm not going in until 11 am. I have a doctor's appointment. The kids are probably ready for a break from me anyway. Today I lectured them again. They were so bad today just ignoring me every time I was trying to speak or tell them something and talking over me etc...

I'm out.

2006-02-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a departure from the norm. My friend, who shall remain nameless for the sake of my anonymity but whom we'll call "Smarties," has "tagged" me with this list of fours thing. At least I think it was me he tagged, there was just a last initial. So I'm supposed to fill out this list of 4 of this and 4 of that I think so here it is - an exercise in pure narcissism..then again, that's what a blog is anyway right?

Four jobs I’ve had,
1. McDonalds
2. 12 Hour night shifts building computers on an assembly line
3. Mail delivery dude for the mail service at a large university
4. Social worker at a middle school

Four movies I’d watch on repeat,
1. Bottle Rocket – enough said…
2. Office Space
3. American Movie - documentary bliss
4. Raising Arizona (and most other Coen brothers movies)
(there are so many more I could put on this list..those are the ones that pop into my head now)

Four TV shows I love,
1. The Office – it took me a little but to get used to the American version after seeing the brilliance of the British version, but now I am on board 100%.
2. The Amazing Race
3. News Radio (syndication anyone?!)
4. Dancing With the Stars (OMG, OMG, George Hamilton!) Not really.

Four vacation spots I’d love to frequent,
1. Northern California (spent the summer of 98 there and then my honeymoon)
2. Chiang Mai, Thailand (lush, mountainous beauty)
3. Italy and Greece (so close together they count as one)
4. Hearne

Four websites I visit daily,
1. my favorite bass player's message board
2. my favorite coffee message board
3. my favorite guns/shooting message board
4. another message board that is just too darn geeky to mention
(Yeah, I like message boards)

Four radio talk shows I love (my friend added this category)
1. Jim Rome (sports/humor talk) - He can be hard to get used to but he always says give him two weeks before you decide. If you listen in the summer when I'm not teaching and you might hear some of my emails. I get read pretty regularly on his show.
2. I used to listen to some of the political dudes but now it's mostly music.
3. Oh yeah, Coast to Coast is good for a chuckle.
4.

Four foods I lust for (I don’t know if I actually lust for these foods, but I do really enjoy them.),
1. IN-N-OUT Burger
2. REAL Chinese food
3. Good Thai food
4. I love coffee
(I could really just put "All food" in that category. Personally I love the stuff, I salute food's entire catalog.)

Four changes to my house, (I assume this means 4 things that I want to change about my house. What a strange category.)
1. Tile floors
2. Different paint and fixtures in the master bath
3. Trees in the yard
4. A usable freaking attic!

Four beers I like, (Don't like beer)

Four artists I like, (a category "Smarties" added)
1. Van Gogh
2. Bryan R. Tyler (http://www.bryanrtyler.com)
3. Picasso
4. Whatever Peruvian peasant painted this picture in my dining room. I call it "Fat woman holding flowers."

Four tags (i.e. tag you’re it, meaning this is where I list people that I would enjoy reading their four list.) I don't know many people with blogs.
1. Estefania (fer real, dawg)
2. Vic Nelson (hey, you have a blog)
3. Dubya
4. Robert Fripp (let's hear it, Bobby!)

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

2006-02-01T15:16:00.000-08:00

Ya gotta love "gifted and talented" kids. I don't have any in my class but today one from another class came up to me and asked where I got my Spongebob tie. I told her that Spongebob personally gave it to me. She then said "Spongebob is a personification." Gee, thanks.

The other day another GT kid came up to me and told me my home address. Scary.

Apparently the Harlem Globetrotters were in town last night. Today all the kids had books, programs and souvenirs from the big show. A couple of the GT kids had their programs with them at recess examing the "How to" section and trying to learn the tricks. It was pretty funny and they weren't even coming close to getting them for the most part.

Tomorrow we're supposed to wear the colors of the NFL team that we're rooting for in the super bowl. I don't live anywhere near Seattle or Pittsburgh so I decided I'm just going to wear my favorite NFL team's shirt. They didn't make it to the playoffs this year but they have played in Super Bowls so that's good enough for me.

Later...

2006-01-31T18:38:00.000-08:00

I think my blog entries are getting worse. It seems I can no longer remember the good things that the kids say that make me think "I've gotta post that in my blog." It's always gone by the time I get here. I need to start writing some of this stuff down.

I've got a couple of kids who seem completely and totally indifferent about school and grades. Did I already say this? If they turn something in at all it's just been slapped together with no thought. The other day I gave one kid a worksheet with ten multiple choice questions. All the answers were clearly there in the book. He got 1 right. He's NOT a slow kid. He's actually pretty smart and creative. That stinks that he's just wasting it. He's the one that makes me laugh in class sometimes when I should be scolding or something. Scolding...never imagined using that word in relation to myself. I'm getting old.

There's one teacher at my school who has absolutely no sense of humor or when you're joking at all. I'll say completely outlandish things to her and she'll answer me with a straight answer and totally not understand that I was kidding. I guess I should watch what I say in that case... I wish I could think of an example of this but again...no memory. There was something just last week that just blew my mind that she took it seriously but I don't recall what it was.

I've got one student in my reading class who reads soooooooo sloooooooow. It's not that he has trouble reading...he just reads really slow. He also takes forever to make a point. Guess what? Every time I ask for volunteers to read he raises his hand. Every time I ask a question to the class he raises his hand to answer. So I spend a disproportionate amount of time calling on this kid and then listening to him speak or read as I resist the urge to say "Spit it out, son!" Sweet kid though.

later

2006-01-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

Whew...looong, busy day today and I need to hit the sack.

One of my kids came up to my desk today with his mouth open and red just all over his bottom lip and his tongue. I thought he bit his tongue but it turns out he just bit his red pen...and it burst all over his mouth. Later he was asking me if it was poisonous.

Had to stay after for tutoring today and then for the rest of a faculty meeting after that and then I had to get some work done after that. Progress reports go out tomorrow. I didn't get home until around 6pm and I had to leave again at 6:20 to go to a meeting. Then dinner around 8:30 or so after that. Tomorrow should be better...although I still probably need to stay late and I'd like to get to the gym at some point. Trying to live well and get things done makes for a busy life. It's nothing like being a slacker and procrastinating.

later

2006-01-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy. Forgot to check in yesterday. Oh well..pretty uneventful day I think. Oh yeah, the school board guy showed up at morning assembly yesterday. The 3rd graders sang him a song. We made him a poster. I think the kids still have no idea who that was.

Today was pretty busy. Every year on the 100th day of the school year the 1st graders have a "100th day parade." This apparently entails walking around the school with funny hats on and holding up 100 of something. Kids had 100 pennies, 100 piece jigsaw puzzles, 100 baseball cards, 100 pieces of candy etc... It was quite exciting or something. I had to cancel my spelling test because of it. I had the They Might Be Giants song "Robot Parade" in my head for the rest of the day after that. Too bad they didn't walk around like robots because the song wasn't very fitting as it is.

The no-homework cycle is neverending. Probably 10 names on the board today. Blah.

Something you may not know about me is that I'm a total coffee geek/snob. I grind my beans religiously every morning to make my coffee, I special order them from faraway places, I won't touch flavored coffees with a 10 foot pole, etc... Yeah, I'm a real nerd. Anyway, today I ordered a coffee roaster and 4lbs of raw coffee beans. I'm entering the obsessive world of coffee roasting. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully it will work out because you can get absolutely top notch raw coffee beans for 4 to 6 dollars a pound. The kind of beans that, if they were roasted, would cost probably 10 to 15 bucks. You can get really premium stuff like Kona, etc.. for cheaper as well. Wish me luck.

That was irrelevant to teaching but oh well.

Tomorrow is our big Winter Carnival. I have to go up and work the ticket booth. Wheeeee.

Later.

2006-01-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

Today was kinda rough again but ended up on a better note. They were doing more of the testing. I think my class and I just kind of need that break from each other every day that we usually get when they go to math and that we don't get when they take these tests. Also, being cooped up in the classroom all day probably doesn't help.

They love it when I do this thing where I say "Whoever is most quiet and still can line up first." Then they all try to be as still as possible but I try to make them laugh so they can't be still. Those who resist the laughter can get in line. That's why we ended on a good note today I think. They were really getting a kick out of me making up songs with their names etc... Some of them do some strange things to try and keep from laughing though. Two of them were cross-eyed so they couldn't see me clearly. One had his head stuffed down in his sweatshirt. It's a fun, light time together where we can all laugh though. Some of them don't try not to laugh at all. It's a fun, light time to laugh together though and that's always good for easing things up.

Still had several with no homework today.

Had tutoring after school today. During that time I get to experience first-hand all these wonderful students that the other teachers are always complai...er I mean bragging about. A couple of them are definitely a handful. It went pretty well though. If they can just take one nugget away from my tutoring that will be great and I think they are.

One of my students has this little brother who comes in after school every day and talks to me. He's a sweet little kid but the poor guy has some kind of speech issue and I can't understand half of what he says. Today he's just talking along and then he walks off. One of my students looks at me and says "I didn't understand a thing he said." I just responded with "Me neither, buddy. Me neither." I guess they think I understand because I nod and say "Uh-huh."

Later.

2006-01-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Today was a bit rough IMO. We had the math test that took most of the day and it seemed like a lot of the kids were just kind of in a bad mood. Very snappy and tightly wound...talking back and rolling the eyes.

Tomorrow we get to do the practice reading test. I forgot to tell them about that today so...SURPRISE!! Yippee! The reading shouldn't take as long as the math at least...I think.

I feel sorry for some of these kids. One poor girl said "I think I did really good," and she ended up getting one of the lowest grades in the class. Overall though the grades weren't that bad and there are some that will definitely benefit from the tutoring that we'll be offering.

In other news, I had 8 kids today that did not complete homework of one type or another. Some of them didn't do any at all. That's so frustrating.

I still don't know the names of so many of the teachers at my school. I'm a total idiot when it comes to knowing and/or remembering names. The worst part is when I see someone at the grocery store or something whose name I should know...especially if I'm with my wife and I should be introducing her. That's the worst feeling, and yet I find myself feeling it quite often. I've been trying to catch a glimpse of the nametag of the custodian that cleans my room for a long time but it's too faded. I always say "Hi!" and she says "Hi, Mr. ____ ."

Today at the end of the day I had the kids do this typing practice computer program that they're required to do. I make them position their fingers properly on the keyboard so they'll learn to type well and with some of them it's like I'm forcing them to walk the plank or something. At the end I told them if any of them think their way of typing is better than my way then they can challenge me to a typing contest and if they win I'll never correct them again.

So far no challengers.

Later.

2006-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

Today was a Monday. I couldn't seem to really get my brain working on all cylinders today. I just kept making these dumb mistakes, mostly in my speech. Confusing kids' names and telling kids to do things they'd already done... Am I already heading towards alzheimer's?

I'm doing the tutoring on Monday and Wednesday afternoons now. That went pretty well. As long as I have a plan then it's not too stressful and I have each group of kids for no more than 15 minutes on a rotating schedule. I think it's good because they can get little chunks at a time and it doesn't require all that much planning on my part.

Tomorrow we continue the endless testing with more practice for the standardized tests. Blech..

What's up with the extreme prevalence of wigs in the african-american culture? My friend brought this up the other day and today I noticed an african-american girl wearing just about the worst wig/extensions I've ever seen. It looked like some bad halloween wig just plopped onto her head. Is that bad of me to say?

I'm currently trying to get social studies books for all my kids. We've been sharing up to this point. Turns out there are none left. We don't have enough for each kid in the school to have one. Oh well..

Ok, I'm out. Not that much exciting happened today. Maybe I'll try and shake it up tomorrow for your entertainment. :P

2006-01-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we had testing most of the day. The kids were going bonkers by the end of the day just ready for some activity. They did get to go to PE at the end of the day though.

Today they were still pretty crazy. I had to repeat directions many times to get them to do anything. I hate days like that.

Oh yeah, yesterday we also started tutoring for writing to prepare some of the kids that need it for the standardized writing test. I have to do that every Monday and Wednesday for about a month now. It's not too bad though...we're out by 4:20 or so. I've got some crazy kids in this tutoring. A couple are just completely hyper...never stop talking, can't stay in the seat etc.. I have to try and be energetic and channel that energy. I think I did OK with it yesterday.

It was kind of funny to watch some of the kids in their own world during that testing yesterday. They'd be silently singing to themselves or dancing in their seats or acting something out and then suddenly realize that I'm watching them. Then I'd give them the one raised eyebrow.

We have a member of our school board coming to the school to visit next week and we're supposed to come up with a song or skit or something for him. The other 4th grade teachers decided on a song and naturally it fell to me to compose this song and the lyrics. I've had a bunch of funny but sarcastic lyrics pop into my head but nothing that we could actually sing. Ho hum...now I have a responsibility and a deadline. I hate those things.

It's hard to teach and get through the things that are required when you have so many things that pop up and get in the way. Yesteraday it was the testing almost all day, today we had required reading fluency tests, next week we have to give practice tests for math and reading on two separate days. I'm getting SO far behind...especially in Social Studies, where we have a strict schedule of what we have to be through when.

Ok, I'm out. Good day.

2006-01-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, sorry. Hope you had a great Christmas and a good new year. I had plans on things to do during my last week of vacation but that didn't work out. I had the flu for the entire week. Now I have a sinus infection...the snot just never stops coming.

The kids have been back in school about a week now. The first day back they were actually pretty calm. They had a great day. It kind of disintegrated from there though. I thought maybe they'd turned a new leaf over the holidays...turns out they were just sleepy.

Today the kids were out for MLK Jr. Day. We had "teacher development" all day. That means you go to a bunch of talks. I was struggling to stay awake after lunch. I've completely gone off caffeine. That was tough because I really love coffee. It doesn't affect me that much most days but when I have to sit and concentrate is when I really feel it. I didn't realize how much caffeine helped me concetrate and stay alert I guess. Aside from that though I haven't had any headaches or withdrawal or anything.

The second semester is officially the testing season. Last week we gave the kids a practice test of the standardized test they have to take. This week we're doing a state mandated "field test" where they use us to try out new questions and whatnot. Then the week after next we have our first section of the official state writing test. We're starting tutoring this week for that to try and get some kids up to speed.

My kids did surprisingly well on the practice writing test last week. I'm proud of them for that.

Report cards also went home last week. So far no angry calls or requests for conferences. Knock on wood. My class was the only class in the 4th grade in which none of the kids had all A's for the semester. Oops. I had one kid who missed it by one point and another that missed it by two. Oh well...the good news is no one failed last semester.

Ok, I'm out. I'll try to get back in the swing of writing this blog thing. You get back in the swing of reading it.

Later.

2005-12-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

So we're now out for the holiday break (about 2.5 weeks). Yes!

Yesterday one of the 4th graders from another class was sitting outside after school and she had this litte Reindeer zipper pouch. She held it up and said "I have a guitar pick in here." Being a guitar player myself I asked her to show it to me. She unzipped the case, reached in and pulled out a rock that was vaguely shaped like a guitar pick. I feigned being impressed. She told me that she has a guitar and plays it all the time. I wonder if the guitar is made of rock too.

Yesterday was kind of a whirlwind day. I had zero free time. It was nonstop from morning until afternoon. In the morning I was trying to get all this last minute work done since report cards go out as soon as they get back in January. I think I got it all done. Then I was scrambling to get all their graded work sorted to go home and then the comments added to their take-home folders and then get ready for their party. Then we came back and they had their little party. I think they had fun. It was still busy for me though. I had after-school duty when they left early at 2pm. Then I came back to my room and tried to get all my grades and stuff ready so I could submit them for report cards without any sweat when I come back. I got all that done, came home and crashed. Whew!

Glad to have this break now! I guess I'll post again in January. Don't forget me!

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

So I kicked off this week by completely forgetting that I have morning duty this week. That means one other teacher was in the gym with the kids by herself trying to keep them under control. I was actually at the school...I was just hanging out in my room and I came strolling into the gym at 7:55 wondering why people are staring at me. Oops.

I set an alarm reminder in my cell phone for tomorrow. This is only a three day week so I've already missed one third of my morning duty responsibilities.

I have so much to do before Wednesday. I didn't realize until last week or so that grades are due for report cards the morning I come back from holiday vacation on January 9th. That stinks...that means I have to get all makeup work and corrections done by Wednesday morning (since Wednesday afternoon is our class party) and then they're gone for the holiday.

These kids are chomping at the bit. They're ready to get outta here. Some of them are already on a mental vacation. Today my kid came back who was on a cruise last week. I told him that if he wants to have any hope at passing he needs to spend every bit of free time this week working on makeup work. He brought back his writing journal...it was allll about his cruise and playing bingo and shuffleboard and the nice people and swimming and the climbing wall and shopping in the Florida Keys... Hope it was worth it. It sure is a pain in my rear.

Two days left until Christmas break!!

2005-12-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

As we get closer to the holidays it seems like it gets harder to make myself update this every day.

Today was kinda hectic in the end. The 4th graders are putting on a holiday musical and they performed it for the school this afternoon and they're doing it again tonight. I have to go up there.

I don't think there's been much of note in the last two days.

One day one of my kids came in from the other class and they say down and another kid goes "Hey, Valerie, what happened to your eye?" Some other kids piped in with "yeah, what happened? Did you get hit?"

I looked over at Valerie and I could see exactly what happened - she apparently had a collision with a makeup truck. Yup...this 4th grader decided to wear makeup and thus the blackeye look. It was funny. The kids thought she had a black eye. She was emarrassed I could tell. Who needs to be wearing makeup in the 4th grade anyway?!

She's always struck me as one of those kids who's trying to grow up too fast. There's another 4th grader who obviously plucks her eyebrows...or has someone pluck them for her rather. I'm quite sure she didn't just decide to start plucking her eyebrows on her own one day. It looks horrible though IMO. I wonder if she'll have any left by the time she's grown up.

I revealed to the kids today who wouldn't be able to attend the celebration day tomorrow as a result of too much missing homework, etc.. The ones who aren't allowed to attend were digging as hard as they could to find some reason that I was mistaken. Poor kids.

4 school days left until Christmas break! Woo hooo!

2005-12-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

I guess I had to skip yesterday since I posted on Friday.

Yesterday was a tad discouraging. The vice principal got a call from a parent who said that her kid told her I'm mean and that he's scared of me. This kid cries at the drop of a hat. This morning he was high-fiving me so I suspect that he came out with those claims in response to a bad grade or something. That's how it often happens. Then the parent gets a very one-sided story. Anyway, while I realize it was probably a very unreasonable claim it still weighs on me somewhat that a kid would even claim that he's scared of me. I'm trying to be more gentle I guess but not too much so. This class will take advantage of that.

We have this reward system where each kid has a card with a circle representing each day in this grading period. As long as the kid returns all homework each day and is good then he gets a hole punched in that day's circle. If he/she doesn't turn in homework or gets his/her name on the board with a check by it then he/she doesn't get a punch that day. So now this Friday is a big celebration day and each kid that gets 42 punches or more (85% of the total punches) gets to take part. Those with less punches have to sit in the library and work on stuff all morning. I have about 7 that have no chance at getting 42 punches by Friday. Most of it is because of not turning in homework on time. Today the principal came by my class and asked the kids "Who thinks they're going to be able to take part in the celebration day this week?!" Every single kid in my class raised a hand. Some of these kids are dreaming. I tried to prepare them for the sting of finding out they can't take part by telling them all that they need to think back to how many times they didn't have homework done on time or their names on the board and that there are some in the class that will not be taking part. I don't know how they'll react when they actually find out. It's too bad. I have one student who is very smart and doesn't really misbehave much but he has habitually not had his homework done this grading period and he will not be taking part. I think he's one that is going to express surprise.

I stayed after and got a lot of grading done today. That was good.

Well, I'm out. Later.

2005-12-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hey look at me! I'm actually posting an entry about my Friday!

Friday was a pretty good day. Both of my classes did much better on their big science tests than they did on the big social studies and english tests. If you don't remember these are "benchmark" tests that the district (and maybe the state?) uses to see how well your class and school is coming along.

Friday morning the first question several kids asked when they saw me was, of course, "Are we having recess today?"

So yesterday during my conference period I got a call from the front office saying "Jerry's dad is here and he was wondering if he could come up and speak with you." I said sure. We had no appointment or anything and I didn't know he was coming but I don't mind at all (As long as it's not on aTuesday when I'm trying to get the take-home folders or progress reports together). So he comes in and tells me "We've really been trying to get Jerry back on track and so I'm taking him out of school next week and we're going to get him caught up and back on track. What we're going to do is his grandparents are going to take him on a cruise."

"Huh?" Did he just say that they're taking this kid on a cruise for a week? Somehow that's supposed to get him "back on track." That's pretty puzzling to me. Not only is the time of this one week before they get out for Christmas vacation (when he wouldn't have to miss any school) but now he's going to miss a major math test and get further behind than he already was. Needless to say I'm still shaking my head on this one. This is not a kid who can afford to miss a week of instruction.

These kids have no concept of how the weather works. As I said on Thursday we had a kid walking to school in just a t-shirt and no coat when it was about 20 degrees outside. He HAS a coat, he just decided not to wear it. Today after school it's windy and 40 degrees out but it's sunny, so the kids all have their coats packed into their backpacks thinking, "It's sunny so it must be warm," and about to run out and wait for their parents in the shade in their short-sleeve t-shirts. They also ask me "Is it gonna snow?" as if all adults know the answer to that question at any given time.

I'm out. Have a good weekend.

2005-12-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

I got to sleep in a little this morning since I didn't have to be at school until 10am. That was very nice. My car was covered in a sheet of ice. I started to scrape the windshield a bit but then I just turned it on and let it run with the defrost on for 2o minutes before I left. The guy two doors down was pouring water over his windshield. My wife, who grew up in the north...great lakes region, thinks it's funny that people do that down here.

Today another teacher and I were walking down the hall and there was a pre-K class sitting in the hallway having a story read to them. This little girl looks at the other teacher that was with me and held up her middle finger in a position which just happened to look exactly like the infamous gesture and just stared at him holding out her hand like that the whole time we walked by. I told him it was obvious she didn't want to be in his class when she gets to 4th grade. We think she was trying to show him a "bobo" on her finger. It was funny though...it just looked like this little blonde preK girl was flipping the bird at him as he walked by.

The kids weren't as crazy as I thought they'd be today considering the ice and the late start now that I think about it. They usually have recess at 10am. The first thing that they asked when we walked into the room at 10:10am was "Are we gonna have recess today?!!" My response to one kid was "You just had a two hour recess!" He said "But I slept until 9am." Exactly.

We put off our big science test because we had a high number of absences today. It's pretty ridiculous that these parents are keeping their kids home because it's cold outside. Get real people...we've got things to do here!

It bothers me when parents send me a note saying something like "Call me to set up a conference." You know what? I'm in charge of 40 kids here, you're in charge of 1. Why don't you call me if you want a conference? If they have time to write a note about it they have time to pick up the phone to call me. What? Do you not want to go to all that trouble of getting out the phonebook or something?

Later.

2005-12-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

Today we had all this talk of frost and snow and these kids were nutso. We played a game to review for our upcoming science test. The other class that comes to me was just fine. They did great and played and worked together. My class was a different story. Every single answer and round was "You were wrong!" "Why'd you answer that?!" "I told you so!" Ugh. I know they're just 4th graders but the other class is so much more mature or something. My class just argues and starts stuff and reacts to each other in kneejerk fashion. Sometimes it gets real old. One kid started crying when I told him he had to sit out for arguing. He cries at the drop of a hat though.

It was cold today. It started out in the upper 40's and by noon was down to 28 degrees. That's cold here for this time of the year. And yet there was still A/C blowing into my room. The climate control in my room seems to have a mind of it's own. It bows down to no man's thermostat. Sometimes we freeze in there and sometimes we burn up.

I went to the grocery store this evening and by 5:30 or so the streets were already starting to freeze over. I was in the grocery store for 20 minutes and when I came out my windshield was already totally iced over. They've delayed the beginning of school tomorrow by a couple of hours. I now don't have to be there until 9:45. Cool. If that holds then it will still count as a full day that won't have to be made up at the end of the year.

I think the kids should be well prepared for the big science test now. If they still do poorly then oh well..I did all I could.

They're preparing for the big holiday music show. Two of my boys had to go practice dancing during recess. I went in today and they were singing some kind of song about Kwanza. I seriously doubt any of those kids or their parents celebrate Kwanza or even know what it is and yet...there they are...happily singing their lungs out about it.

Later.

2005-12-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry no entry yesterday. It was really busy. I was trying to get ready for the progress reports that were going out today. Parents like to see grades for some reason so I was getting those entered into the system and papers graded that I've been procrastinating on.

I was up at the school until about 6:30 last night. Then I had somewhere to be at 6:30 and then I had to go to the store. Then when I got home I filled out the weekly behavior reports for the kids that go home in a folder.

Today I got to school and realized that I forgot all the folders and my grade book at home. Luckily my wife got off early and was able to bring them to me. I managed to get the progress reports all printed up and sent home.

Got another note from a parent today whose child obviously gave them a one-sided story and they totally bit. That's always fun.

Tomorrow is supposed to get real cold. Hopefully we'll have an inside recess time. Those are good when it's your day to go outside and watch the kids during recess. I can just sit at my desk and get stuff done while they play with...blocks...or whatever it is they're playing with over there...I don't know, who has time to pay attention to that?! It'd be sweet if it iced over and we had a snow day but I don't think that's going to happen.

Thursday we have another test to see how the kids are progressing. This time it's for science. Hopefully I'll have them ready this time. My english and social studies test results were wretched if you happen to remember those posts. I started reviewing today and we'll do that some more tomorrow.

Today we went down to the computer lab for an hour and the technology lady taught a lesson with the kids using the Access Database. She was going so fast and half of my kids were still trying to find the letter 'L' or something when she's already puttting in the next record. They got through it though.

Well, that's about all I've got today. Later.

2005-12-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

Had another pretty good day today.

At the end of the day after school there was a baby shower for the vice principal and his wife. He's a really great guy. I'm happy for him too. Oh, and also going to baby showers is like pulling teeth. In fact going to any kind of shower is like that...I can barely bring myself to take showers daily just because it's the same name as those grueling parties that women like to go to. Do you hear that inventor of the shower?! You're threatening my very hygene!

So anyway, they're having this shower and I kind of feel like I have to go. I walked down to the library where they're having it and walk in and look around and just get this really uncomfortable feeling. You know the one...it's like uh...it's like...being in hell. Yeah...hell is probably like a shower or something...maybe with more fire and demons and doilies and stuff. So I get that feeling like "Oh crap, this is a shower and I'm attending it." So I turned back around hoping that no one noticed that I just walked in and I went back to my room. About 5 minutes later the only other male teacher who was there comes to my room and tells me "Your presence is requested." Awww maaan...someone did notice. So I went back down there and had my teeth pulled for 40 minutes or so. Seriously though...I'm happy for the guy. He really is a great guy...couldn't ask for a better vice principal. It was probably more painful for him to sit there being stared at by everyone while opening gifts and reacting overenthusiastically to burp rags and something called "onesies" which I still have no idea what that is.

I think my dog has fractured my nose. The other night I was wrestling with her and she jerked her head back real hard into my nose. Now it hurts on one side and when I press it there it makes this clicking noise that gives me the heeby jeebies. Is that how you spell "heeby jeebies?" I think that's first time I've ever spelled it.

This week I've been struggling with feelings of imbalance in my teaching and how I treat my class. I feel like I get in authoritarian mode and can't get out of it very easily. I like to have fun but it's too much when my class starts going crazy. On the other hand though I don't have that problem with the other class that comes to me. They're a more mature class and we have fun without that problem...so maybe it's just my class. I don't know...I wish I could be more laid back without them just flipping out and bouncing off the walls.

I'm out..

2005-11-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

Well today was better. We had some fun and didn't have the pressure of yesterday. I ended a crummy day yesterday by figuring up the results of our big test to determine if the kids are learning the English and realizing that they did almost as bad on that as they did on the big social studies test. However, there was a little relief today when I found out that one of the other teacher's (who's pretty well respected) classes did about as bad as mine. So as long as I'm not in the boat by myself it makes things a little better.

I was looking through the kids made-up Native American names again today. There was one girl who named herself "She-who-is-really-talented-in-gymnastics." Her reasons were "Because I do really awesome flips and get lots of compliments." Sweet.

Today we had a fire drill. As we were coming out of the building some kids were running and I told them not to run. Afterwards we were back in the classroom and a kid raised her hand and said, "If there was a real fire we would run though right?" I said, "No, we would walk." She gave me this total "You're crazy" look. I think she understood why that is after I explained it but I'm not sure.

I have this kid who goes to the bathroom after lunch and sits on the pot for a good 15 minutes. Half the time I don't even realize he's not there and I start a lesson only to realize when he comes strolling in later that he wasn't there. What could take a 4th grader that long when there's not even any magazines to read?!

Later.

2005-11-29T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today sucked.

Later.

2005-11-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I hope you did too.

Today was probably kind of a typical day after a holiday kind of day. The kids seemed kind of drowsy this morning and they seemed to have forgotten basic classroom procedures.

This morning I read them a book that was the story of the bluebonnet from native american legend. The girl in the story is named "She-who-is-alone" and is later renamed "One-who-loves-her-people." Afterwards I had the kids come up with their own similar names for themselves based on their accomplishments or interests. I had some kinda funny ones. One was "She-who-is-smart," because "I always make good grades and I'm smart." Another was "He-who-loves-wrestling," because "I like wrestling and I watch it too much." We're talking WWE professional wrestling here. There were some others that made me chuckle but now I can't recall them unfortunately. There were lots of "He-who-likes-football" and "She-who-likes-soccer" types.

Today we continued writing in our weekly writing journal. We're going through topics and each one starts with a different letter of the alphabet. This week's letter is 'J'. After they write at least one page about the assigned topic they can think of some good character trait that also starts with that letter and write about. Today one of my students wrote his one page and then came up to me and asked "On the second page can I write about 'Jet packs are really awesome!'?" Huh? I asked him if "Jet packs are really awesome!" is a good character trait.

Today wasn't so good at the end. My students did horrible on their test that measures whether or not they've learned the social studies that we're supposed to teach them. The principal talked to me about it this afternoon. That's never a good feeling. I'm sure they'll do better on all the next ones though. I'm a better teacher now for sure...still have a long way to go but I'm definitely better than I was 2 and a half months ago. It's kind of embarrassing though.

Well, dinner's ready. Gotta go. Later!

2005-11-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sold on this English teaching method. It's incredible. It just teaches itself. I'm just following the book pretty much. If you wanted to actually follow it verbatim there's even a "script" for each lesson. I'm not really doing that though. Now if I only had a decent amount of time to teach English.

It's pretty amazing that I only have about an hour to teach English, writing and spelling. How they expect me to really teach them all they need to know in that amount of time is beyond me.

Today I read another Chris Van Allsburg book the class. This one is called The Wretched Stone.
It's really a good metaphor for the television. Basically it's about this crew of men on a ship who come to a mysterious island with lush vegetation but no fruit growing, a sweet smell that soon begins to stink and water that is too bitter to drink. They find a big rock there that has one part that is "As smooth as glass" and has a light emitting from it. The crew takes it aboard ship and becomes obsessed with it. They sit around staring at it all day (They'd previously spent their time reading, telling stories and playing music) and become so obsessed that they don't man the ship anymore. Anyway..it goes on and they turn into dumb apes. At the very end I asked some leading questions that got the kids to realize that the rock is a metaphor for television and they spent a lot of time trying to argue the benefits of sitting around for hours watching TV or playing video games. I didn't tell them how much time I spend writing this blog, surfing the net and playing video games. That's right, I'm a "damned, dirty" hypocrite. I haven't turned into an ape yet though.

I had the vice principal pop in for a surprise observation today. It went ok I think.

I was running a "zero tolerance for excessive talking during teaching time" day today. We had a lot of names on the board at the end of the day but I think if I stick with it those will decline. I need to stick strictly with it so hopefully they'll grow accustomed to it. That's one thing abou this new English method..it's good but it has some chants/songs and the kids will go berserk if you don't keep a lid on it before and after they say them.

Later.

2005-11-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm really bad at getting these Friday posts up aren't I? Either I just don't have time or (as was the case yesterday) I just forget.

Friday was good. We started this new method of learning english and grammar. It involves a lot of songs that teach rules. The kids love those and it went well. The only thing is that when we do these kinds of things that are a little more fun the kids just kind of lose it and go crazy. I think I'm going to just have to institute zero tolerance for talking during this time. Maybe they'll learn to not go crazy if we do that. I'm also thinking about breaking up the desk groupings and arranging them so that there are only 4 desks/students to a group. That might help too.

Two day week next week! Woohoo! That makes lesson-planning easy, although I've already started lesson-planning for the following week so hopefully I won't have to do any of that over the holiday.

On Friday as I was pulling into the school I saw a 4th grader walking in wearing a boot on one foot and high heel on the other. My first thought was "aww, poor girl can't even afford two of the same shoe." I got into the morning assembly though and started seeing all these kids with similar getups...weird hair-dos, mixed up shoes and clothes on backwards, etc.. There was no scheduled school "wacky day" but apparently the 4th graders go together (lead by one girl) and decided on their own, without telling any teachers or admins, that they were going to have a "Wacky day." So they did. We just rolled with it. When we got to my classroom more of my students than usual went to the bathroom. Many of them hadn't heard about wacky day and when they returned they were quite wacky as well. Wow...one rolled-up pants leg?! That is too crazy. It's just verging on dangerous. Have you heard of anything so wacky?

That's all for me. later..

2005-11-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. I was in a pretty good mood this morning and my kids were behaving pretty well.

This morning I did some benchmark testing for social studies. So far they did really bad. I have all kinds of good excuses though so don't worry.

Today in the cafeteria they had a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the traditional dishes. A lot of the kids families and parents showed up to eat with them. I guess it's a tradition here to do that on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. After lunch one of my girls was crying. I took her out in the hallway and asked her why and she said she misses her real mom, who lives in another state. She said she saw all the other kids moms there eating lunch with them and it made her miss her mom. How sad.

Today we had a scheduled session with the counselor. She does these lessons on character and stuff and today it was a puppet show. I had to control the puppet from behind a curtain while she read a story. The kids were being pretty bad when we were setting up and I think the counselor got kinda mad. It was partially my fault because, unbeknownst to her, I was making the puppet look out at the kids from around the corner and scratch his head and stuff and they were laughing. Oops.

One of my kids took benadryl this morning and couldn't stay awake. I had her splash water on her face and get a drink but she was still falling asleep. I had her do jumping jacks after that and she was still falling asleep. Let's try non-drowsy meds next time, mkay?

Later.

2005-11-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

Today was ok despite my nose running like a faucet all day. I assume it's allergies. I don't feel bad in any other way except a mild headache. I hate this though.. Maybe I need some different allergy medicine.

Did you know that Aristotle was the first sexist to classify animals? At least that's what it looked like one of my kids wrote on his worksheet that I graded today. I didn't even realize he was a sexist at all, much less the first one to classify animals. Things were probably different back in those days though. Aristotle could hang out in the game room with Socrates while the wife, Martha Totle, waited on them hand and foot. Anyway...

Two of my kids got these Star Wars digital watches from McDonald's and they're absolutely obsessed with them. They constantly stare at them and play with them. I had to take one up today because it was so distracting. I guess Douglas Adams was right when he classified us as "life forms...so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving! Only two days of school next week!

I just found out today that I was supposed to have been doing "Celebrate Freedom" lessons all this week. I think it's some kind of state law or something. Oops! I guess it will just have to be "Celebrate Friday" because tomorrow we're doing some benchmark testing during the normal social studies time. This is just another one of those things that I'm finding out as I go along.

Later.

2005-11-15T17:07:00.001-08:00

So tomorrow and the next day we have all these "benchmark tests" to see how the kids are doing. I don't think mine will do all that well. We'll see. I just haven't yet gotten to some of the things that they're being tested on. Oh well, I reviewed some today but I'm not going to stress myself out over it.

We had inside recess today because of bad weather. That's fine with me because it was my day to be outside on duty anyway. I'd rather just be inside with my class than outside watching over six classes.

I had another computer training session after school today. We have to attend training sessions for various basic Microsoft programs whether we know how to use them or not. I was so sleepy today...I stayed up too late watching Monday Night Football. The instructor said "Sorry for keeping you awake." Oops...

Nothing really noteworthy happened today. 4 of my students checked out the same book from the library with the notion that if they checked out the same book I was going to let them get together and read as a group every day in class. They seemed pretty disappointed when I didn't allow them to do that. Maybe I should...I know these girls though and they most certainly would have talked more than they read.

I had so many kids that didn't do homework again today. That's annoying. I've pretty much resolved that there's not much I can do to change that aside from what I'm already doing. Oh well...

Sorry this is so boring today. I'm out.

2005-11-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

Sorry about no post on Friday. I came home from work and we left almost immediately to go out of town for the weekend.

We started off this morning in morning assembly with the third graders performing part of some show they're doing. Apparently it's patriotic. They did an interpretive performance to Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to be an American." Now don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty patriotic guy and I love America and all, but the cynic in me just can't help cringe when that song starts up and there's a performance involved because, well...it's just a cheesy song and any performances accompanying it are sure to be cheesy as well...and it was. There was lots of holding and waving of flags.

Today in science one of my groups was making a poster about arthropods that informed the viewer that "Insests have 6 legs." No comment.

Today was a really good day. Only two names on the board and we had fun I think. Today during our group project time one of my kids just turns to the other and kind of punches him under his chin for no reason. The other kid got a bloody lip outta the deal. I don't know what it is with these kids but occasionally they just decide to do something totally out there like that. Like the time a couple of weeks back when one of my kids turned to the other and just kneed him in the crotch for no reason.

I have this big pimple thing on my nose and kids from both classes asked me today "What happened to your nose?" Ya gotta love kids...no tact but plenty of honesty. I told them a chipmunk bit me.

We finished reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe today. They loved it and are now all psyched to see the movie. They also want to read the rest of those books but it's just too high of a level for most of them to read independently.

That's about all I've got. Back to MNF.

2005-11-10T16:18:00.000-08:00

Today was good. Another student gave me an apple. I finally got my portfolio edition of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick in the mail yesterday so today I had them do a writing assignment on the pictures. It's pretty cool because it has all the pics from the book but they're bigger and on loose paper so you can take each one out. I hung them up on the board today and had them choose one and write a story about it. I also decided I would write a story about one too. That seemed to spur their curiosity at the very least. I chose the one called "Under the Rug." Actually I didn't tell them to write a story, I told them to "Write something about it...whatever you want." Some kids thought they would get away with just writing a few sentences and then they'd be done. When they brought those to me I would just say "Great! Now choose another one and write about it," and so on.

I also had them do the Weekly Reader exercise again today where they read an article and then report on it as if they're the evening news. Even after emphasizing how everyone in the group needs to participate equally in the presentation I still had things like one kid just laying there under some pillows doing nothing at all during the presentation about Mt. Everest. Afterwards I said "Wait, wait...what did Gordo do?" They said "He was the mountain." Good job, Gordo. Best mountain ever. I think you have a promising career doing anything that involves laying motionless.

I don't know what to do about these kids weekly writing assignment. They have this writing journal where they write about a different positive character trait every week. Many of them just write the same, repetitive, unimaginative stuff every week and I know they have more ability than that. They're just being lazy. I wish I knew a good way to get them excited about writing in that thing.

Well, I'm out. Later.

2005-11-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

Fear not, I'm alive! I've just had a very busy week and wasn't able to post yesterday. I was up at school until past 4:30 and I had a continuing education type class that I had to go to at 5pm and I got home around 9pm. That was just real bad timing for that class. Not only did I not get to vote, I also didn't get to spend any time working on my progress reports that had to go out today. I was scrambling to get them out but it ended up ok.

Kids were kinda strange today... acting sorta sneaky and weird to each other.

This one girl today told me that her stomach hurt. I told her she should try and go to the bathroom. Then we went to the computer lab. She said she felt like she was going to throw up so I told her to go to the bathroom. She went and came back really quick and just continued her typing. Then I look around about 15 minutes later and she was gone again. I went and asked her if she was ok and she told me that she'd thrown up three times that afternoon. Why the heck did she not tell me this?! That's not really the sneakiness that I was talking about...that's just weird.

There was just kind of an air of enmity today I guess you could say. I don't know..I saw one kid who had his hands around another kids neck in a choking position. He claimed to be playing but that kind of stuff was happening all day. Then one girl made another one cry by saying that she's failing in front of the whole class. Etc.. etc...

These kids are obsessed with this book sale we're having this week. They're constantly asking me "Can I go to the book sale? Can I go to the book sale?!" I've never wanted more for my class to be illiterate.

The good thing about it though is that two of the kids gave me gift certificates to spend there for whatever reason. That's nice...about 15 bucks total.

We read two very dramatic chapters of our book today. I think some of the kids were crying and then in the second chapter many of them were laughing. It's kind of fun to see them so engrossed in the book.

Yesterday I went and observed another teacher doing a specific method of teaching english. It's a really great method. I'd like to do it myself...I don't know if I'll be able to effectively implement it without proper training but I might try. This thing basically teaches itself...it's pretty amazing.

Ok, dudes, later...

2005-11-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

Today was...meh.. I don't know. I had a sit-down with the principal and we went over the observation that she did of me a couple of weeks back. It wasn't exactly glowing. There were circumstances surrounding it though. I had a crappy lesson that day and I knew it. Also, I had some inaccurate expectations of the observation and what it entailed too. We're going to do it over.

Today was just a busy day. I asked the principal last week if she could get someone to fill in for me during one of my classes tomorrow so I can observe another teacher using a particular method of teaching English. Well, she told me this afternoon (after school and after our faculty meeting) that she would personally be standing in for me during that time. Well, after the somewhat negative discussion about her observation I was thinking I need to have some kind of really good lesson plan for her so I spent too long after school completing my lesson plan when I had other things to do this evening.

I brought home the teacher appreciation cards that the students made for me on Friday. Here are some of the other sentiments that were expressed in addition to those I mentioned Friday:

"You are the teacher in the world." (whoa! I'm THE teacher?! That's quite a burden!)

"Hope you get better!" (You hope I get better at teaching or what?!)

"Everyone misses you!" (I'd been gone for an hour and a half)

"Good Lucky!"

"Get well soon!" (Guess this kid was a little confused about what kind of cards they were making...either that or he's talking to my doctor and knows something I don't)

This one was written down the page:
"yourth
ebestea
cherinthe
univers"
(I think it's one of those wacky word puzzles)

"I hope your lunch was fantactic." (Oddly enough I did use some fan tactics when I got a bit warm at the restaurant)

Best for last - this one said "Your the best teacher in the galaxy" but that wasn't the best part. Below that it had a bunch of random pictures and each picture was labeled. Here is how the pictures were labeled from left to right: black hole, doggy, ogre, guy on fire (the guy has his hands in the air, is smiling and appears to have flames shooting out of his anus), flying pig, darth vader. Then down below that is a man driving what appears to be some kind of red, convertible fire engine and there's a label that says my name. As much as I like Theach's proclamation about me that I mentioned yesterday this card is probably my favorite. It wins out of sheer randomness.

Today was the first day of the school book fair. I took my class for about 15 minutes. I wish they would just have books at these book fairs because the kids all came back with all kinds of random junk and few books. One kid spent who knows how much on some plastic skeleton hand that opens and closes when you squeeze a button. That should really improve his reading skills. They came back with video games, Spongebob posters and book covers, posters of basketball stars, little plastic toys. I seriously don't recall seeing one kid bringing back and actual book.

It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid in elementary school and we had this thing around Christmas called "Santa's Secret Shop." The idea was you could bring some money and shop for your family for Christmas. Basically it was 10 tables full of the worst kind of Chinese-made plastic crap. One year my dad's Christmas present from me was a shoehorn. It came from Santa's Secret Shop, of course. To his credit he kept that shoehorn for many years. I'm surprised it didn't go straight in the trash. Another year I think I bought him some fingernail clippers. Not just any fingernail clippers though...they came in a faux-leather zippered case. Zippered case? What's up with that? Do I really need to add another step in the fingernail clipping process? Is it truly necessary to introduce unzipping and zipping into the equation? I think I got my mom one of those oven pads one year. I'm sure that left her breathless. I wonder if they'll do something similar to that at my school this year. For the sake of mothers and fathers throughout the area I sure hope not.

I'm out. G'night.

2005-11-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up not sure whether I was going to hock a lugie or throw up. I'm just having all this drainage and junk. That's a nice way to start off today's entry isn't it? I know you were interested.

I finally broke down and wore the embroidered denim shirt today. On Fridays we can wear jeans and we're supposed to wear a shirt representing our school district. My usual t-shirt was dirty so I busted out the button-down, short sleeve embroidered denim shirt with the school logo on it. Man, that thing is not pretty. Oh well.

Today was "teacher appreciation day" so we got to take an hour and a half for lunch together while our PTA moms took our classes for us. So we went out to roadhouse type place for lunch. When I came back my class had all made cards for me. One of the cards ended with "I hope you know that you're not perfect." I couldn't quite make out another but it seemed to say "You're a god." Upon further inspection there's another word written smaller down below "You're a god." The word appears to be "theach." I believe they were trying to write "You're a good teacher." However, now it looks like a letter from a kid named Theach:

Dear _______,

You're a god

theach

There's all kinds of blasphemy going on in my class.

Another one of the cards called me a genius and had a cartoon portraying some sort of distorted character (which I believe is supposed to represent me) discovering a cure for the common cold. That's right...I'm a teacher by day, and a medical genius by night.

I have this one kid who always holds his book up in front of his face while he picks his nose. What does he think that we think he's doing behind that book that's 3 inches from his face with his other hand up there?! This is a daily event. The other day I saw another kid insert his finger into his nose, retrieve a booger and then insert his finger into his mouth. He was pretty stealth about it but I see all...I am a god you know...even if I'm not perfect. Theach says so.

2005-11-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

Struggled through another day with half a voice today. I actually had a little more voice than yesterday but it's still kinda hard.

Today I had them try this activity again where they read the weekly reader and then pretend to be TV news reporters and do a report on the story as a group. Last time they just basically all ended up standing at the front of the classroom, heads buried in the magazine, just reading the article to the class. This time I overemphasized that I really wanted them to try to imagine what the news is like on TV and do something like that. I even let them watch about 5 minutes of CNN headline news so they could see the styles of reporting. They did a little better this time. However, one group's story was about the snakehead fish in America (it's a toothy chinese invasive fish species that was released in some american waters and basically eats all the other fish). Well they talked about the fish for a few minutes and then went straight to a news report about a woman who'd been attacked by a snakehead fish and had an arm covered in red-pen simulated blood and everything. The rest of the report was completely unrelated to the article and was all about this woman and how she got attacked by this fish. No idea where that came from.

Last week I had the kids fill out this form that told about what the world in their closet is like (We're reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe so I had them imagine another world in their own closet). Today I had them finish writing a letter to anyone telling them about what that world is like. I had this one kid who wrote to his friend and the whole letter was filled with a description about how he's the god of his world and everyone else will bow down to him. It went on and on in great detail about his "minions" and whatnot. There was another kid that said his world was inhabited by demons and the devil. Sometimes I wonder if I should be alarmed or something by that kind of stuff. Is it a reflection of something going on in their lives or are is it just harmless imagination? I hope it's the latter.

I have this one kid who takes 3 to 4 times as long as the rest of the class to do anything. Anything at all..pick something...I guaranty he can take twice as long as the average 4th grader to do it. Every day I start telling him to get ready to leave at 3:10. By the time the bell rings at 3:20 he's never ready. Today I told him to get ready. 30 seconds later he's standing at someone's desk talking. I told him to get ready, another 30 seconds later he's staring at the cover of his library book. So then I went over there and stood next to him. Even with me standing right there I had to tell him to get ready and stop doing something else 3 or 4 more times. He just gets distracted so easily. This is a kid who last week was sitting in the middle of the gym at morning assembly and noticed he had a scratch on his leg that needed cleaning immediately. So right in the middle of the gym he pours his bottle of water all over his leg. Even after water is all over the floor he has no concept of the mess he's made. That's pretty typical. His desk is a disaster area. He's a very creative kid...if only I could get him to do his work. This is a different kid from my space cadet...this kid does take part in class.

Well, that's about all I've got today. Later.

2005-11-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

I was sick yesterday and stayed home. My voice was close to nonexistant. Today wasn't much better as far as my voice goes but I went in anyway. It went ok.

This morning when I walked into the gym where the kids wait the first thing one of my kids said to me after excitedly calling me over was "I had eggs for breakfast." It's not like this kid is poor and rarely has food for breakfast. I'm not sure why he so exuberantly shared this information with me. I had cereal for breakfast in case you're wondering.

It was kind of hard doing class with no voice today but it wasn't too bad. I used a lot of gestures. Today we learned about ecosystems in science and I had them do an activity where everyone gets in a circle head-behind-head and then they all sit down. If it works correctly then when they sit down they should each be supported by the knees/legs of the person behind them. It took a few tries to get it but they finally did and they had a lot of fun. When they finally did it successfully I then pulled one student out of the circle and they all fell. This wasn't just to be cruel. The whole point was that it's an example of how all the parts of an ecosystem work together. I think it really clicked for them.

It's a good feeling to give a writing assignment and then watch a kid get really excited about his writing ideas. Today I had them write a letter to anyone in the world about the fantasy world inside of their closet (an idea we came up with last week). One kid wrote it to a fictional person and I had to wonder if this kid is dealing with anger because most of the letter was composed of insults towards this imaginary person ("You fat slob!" etc..) and it ended with "I hate you!!" Wow...I had him rewrite it and focus on the content of the assignment and leave out the insults. It was kind of weird.

Another thing that happened today is that one of my students (a girl) was reading a Judy Blume book when she called me over to help her with a word. She said "What does this word mean?" and pointed to it. The word was "tits." Sheesh...whaddya say?! I just said "Just don't worry about that word right now." Later on she came across it again and asked me again. Then she said "Should I ask my mom what this word means?" Again I didn't really know what to say to a 4th grader asking me about "tits." I guess she'll ask her mom.

Well, that's about all I've got. Adios.

2005-10-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

Today the kids were really amped up. All because of Halloween. Also, today in PE/Art/Music they had a "Fall Blowout" or something like that where they had all these huge, elaborate inflatable playthings set up in the gym (slides, obstacle courses, moonwalk, etc..) and the kids just played on them the whole time. They were waiting for that ALL day. I didn't feel good today and i started losing my voice midway through the day. I've already arranged for a sub tomorrow but if I wake up and feel great in the morning I'll still go in. Not likely..my voice will probably only get worse from here.

As I said, today is Halloween so they were pretty wired. Some of the teachers showed movies and whatnot but that never really even crossed my mind honestly. I don't really "get into" Halloween anymore (although I did as a kid, big time) but I did read a kind of creepy book to the kids today. Not a horror book or a halloween book...just creepy. It was all stormy and raining and dark outside and we sat by the windows as I read them a book called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg. He's the guy that did Polar Express, Jumanji, etc... Later on I'm going to have them do some stories as the person in the link above did about the pics. They're great pictures and it's a great book for jumpstarting imaginations.

Tomorrow the entire 4th grade is supposed to go to the symphony. Too bad I most likely won't be there. That'd be cool.

I hate missing a day. It's already hard enough to keep up!

Well, I'm gonna go. Trick-or-treaters will probably be here any minute.

2005-10-31T05:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry no Friday updates...it was a busy day. Now we're back to the manic Mondays. See ya this evening probably.

2005-10-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Well I think I insulted all the 4th grade female teachers. I guess it was bound to happen eventually so it was good to get it over with.

Yesterday we were talking about teachers' clothing. At my school male teachers have to wear ties and button-down shirts. Well, I made the comment that the clothes that many of the female teachers wear isn't even close to being comparable to a man's shirt and tie as far as formality goes and that many of the female teachers were "slumming it and looking like they're dressed for a day at the beach" while we've got to wear these ties. As you can imagine that didn't go over so well. I knew that was going all wrong the second that I got my first response of a somewhat offended sounding "I don't look like I'm going to the beach." Oops. I wasn't referring to any of the teachers in my grade when I said that but not really seeing the big picture I dug myself a little deeper by then referring to something that they all wear when I said "For example - capri pants are not at all comparable to nice slacks." Well at this point I've now implicated all of my female coworkers directly and thus accidentally tied them up in a direct association with the teachers who are "slumming it." I guess I put my foot in my mouth (nothing that I'm not used to). I noticed today that all three of them seemed to be dressed a little nicer than usual. I made my apologies at lunch and told them that if I'd been including them in those comments I would have said it in a nicer way. Really. Hopefully I didn't sour any relationships with that.

This morning my class all comes in and one kid tells me that his mom got an email from me telling her he needed to bring some cookies to class today. I was totally confused by that and assured him that I sent no such email and I had no idea what he was talking about. Then all of a sudden I'm getting showered by packages of cookies and juice and whatnot. I was like "Whoa! Whoa! What's going on here.." Kids were literally dumping cookies in my lap and just walking off. Apparently my PTA "room mother" had called all the kids' parents the night before and asked them to bring snacks for this parent meeting they were having that night and bring said snacks to me. She didn't let me know about this until around noon or so, well after I'd gone through the confusion of sorting out the cookie shower. Oddly, one parent sent juice and a big box of saltine crackers.

Today while the kids were reading I opened up the Merriam Webster dictionary online and looked up one of the kid's name. It was there...so I hit the button to say the word out loud and the computer said his name..much to the surprise of himself and the class. Then I realized I could find reasonable representations of everyone's name in the dictionary and make it say the name out loud. They got a big kick out of that and everyone was saying "Make it say my name! Make it say my name!" That was kinda funny.

Ok, I'm out. Later.

2005-10-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. We read two chapters of our book, studied cells more in-depth, went to the computer lab and did some required typing exercises and made some anti-drug posters for Red Ribbon Week. I would have personally rather spent the poster time doing writing but we have to do it and the kids had fun with it I think.

Today we were talking about cells and DNA and then the kids started asking me about cloning and one kid asked "What if they put a goat in a cow's womb?" Then we started getting silly with "If they put a pig in a loaf of bread would it give birth to a hot dog?" and whatnot. It was a good time of silly bonding. The science thing with learning cells is so dry. I can't think of a really great way to teach about the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, vacuoles, etc... I try to make the conversations as interesting as possible by connecting it to things they're familiar with but it's still very dry stuff. They try REALLY hard sometimes to get the conversation off track and onto something more interesting.

This week in our writing journals one of my students accidentally had hers upside down when she wrote her two pages. She told me that Monday. Today she hands me the journal and says "Don't forget that it's upside down," in a very concerned voice. Did she think I was going to look at it and think it was some alien language and give her a zero or something?! Gimme some credit, 4th graders!

Today I finally went and got my fingerprints to send in for my standard teaching license background check (I'm on a probationary license this year). I've put it off WAY too long. I have a friend who was told by her school district over a month ago that if she didn't get hers they were going to put her on part time hours. Mine havent' said a thing but I'm fairly certain I was supposed to get it done long before today. I'm glad to have it done though.

Well, that's about it for me. Later.

2005-10-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Not much time for blogging today. It's been a long, busy day ending in a world series game that's still going on. The sacrifices I make for you, the blogreader. :)

Had my new kid in class today. Everything went fine with that. He's in special ed most of the time anyway.

I still get frustrated sometimes with my class's self-defeating behavior. We really have a lot of fun in the other class I teach because I can be silly and have fun and they handle it appropriately. They can laugh and then move on and continue learning and it's great. My class, however, just loses control if I start being silly. They just spiral into an almost chaotic state. I've tried telling them we could all have more fun if they'd just listen and follow directions but it doesn't help. I'm still looking for solutions to that. They're so impulsive at this age but I can't blame it on age alone because the other class is able to conduct themselves just fine.

This is drug-free red ribbon week. We all wear these red wrist bands all week and each band has a number on it. They draw numbers at the end of each day and the person with the matching number on his/her wrist band gets a prize. I'm not sure where elementary kids winning little plastic frisbees falls in the war on drugs but I'm sure it's an important piece of the puzzle.

Ok, I'm out. Good night.

2005-10-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those restless days where the kids just won't stop talking all day and aren't following directions etc.. I'm getting another new student this week. He sounds like he could be...er..challenging perhaps.

I was so sleepy today. All the 4th grade teachers had a meeting with the principal during our conference period and I could barely keep my eyes open. Falling asleep during a meeting with your principal is probably not good. Luckily I don't think she noticed.

Oh yeah, I had the principal come in and observe me teaching today. My lesson was really pretty lame, I think. Hopefully I can come up with something more creative next time. Seriously though...my day to day lessons are typically better than that. I don't know what I was thinking. I should have had her come last week when I was doing all the cool electricity experiments. Today we were just talking about "characteristics of living things." Pretty dry stuff.

One kind of funny thing happened today. During our reading time reading our novel I was enouraging the kids to read with expression instead of like monotone robots (the usual). This one kid, bless his heart...he really tried but it was hilarious. He was just putting the emphasis, exclamations and expressions on all the wrong words where it just didn't make sense. It was pretty amusing. He's kind of a stuttery, start and stop reader to begin with so it just wasn't working out for him. I appreciated his effort though..it's better than some of the robot readers.

I thinking my writing and english teaching is going to start coming together a little better now that I've had that training and I've got more of a method. I needed something more organized. Now I have focus.

I'm sleepy...later.

2005-10-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, busy day Friday. Busy weekend. I just accidentally typed "busty weekend." It was definitely not a busty weekend if anyone was wondering.

Nothing really interesting happened on Friday that I can remember. That's why it stinks when I forget to do an entry on the same day though..I can never remember anything.

Oh yeah, I took those bubba teeth that someone put in my box and put them on for the kids. As my reading class was entering the room I had them in and was bent over my bag as if I was looking for something, then when they all got in and seated I turned around and said "I just want to thank you all for being good for the sub while I was at the dentist yesterday." The teeth have this fake loose tooth that wiggles really nastily (is that a word?) and is attached by fishing line. I kept flipping it and wiggling it back and forth with a look of contentment on my face. They loved it of course. I did it for the other class and when I first turned around two of the students near my desk seriously jumped in fear at first. That was my Friday fun.

I think I'm being observed by the principal tomorrow. Unfortunately, because I had such a busy week and weekend I didn't really have time to plan an awesome, bang-up lesson so I'll just have to rely on my natural charm. Yeah...I'm screwed.

2005-10-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

So today I went to this writing training. It was really pretty good. I learned some good stuff. There was this one lady at my table though with a total chip on her shoulder regarding the training. She stops the lady who was doing the presentation near the beginning and goes "Excuse me, I've been teaching 26 years and I wanna know if you're going to give me something I can use here." She said it in what was, to me, a rude way too. That's kind of inherently rude as it is.

Then later on she was commenting on an aspect of the training totally from a strict old school perspective that completely missed the point of what the lady was teaching us.

Then there was another lady that said "So this is going to make my kids good writers in four months?" I was thinking "Lady, you want a miracle, not a method."

Some people just have no concept of appropriateness...and they're teaching your kids.

I went up to the school this morning and went over how to stream a video off of the computer and onto the TV with the substitute. She seemed comfortable with it...I hope that went well. I also hope she gave my kids their report cards.

I've got to spend that educational money tomorrow. I think I'm going to look through all the catalogs of the vendors the school does business with and see if I can find one of those little cheapo video cameras that you can hook up to your computer. Then I want to try and build some kind of makeshift apparatus where I can suspend the camera looking down at a table and I can write or do things and they'll show up on the TV. Follow me? You can buy such an apparatus (Called an "Elmo") but it's very expensive. I was just thinking today I could probably easily make something on the cheap that does the same thing.

I'm out.

2005-10-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's the big substitute day. My first day to be out. My inservice that I have to go to is at 9am but I don't even really get to sleep in because I need to go up to the school before classes start and make sure that the sub can do this thing I need her to do on the computer tomorrow.

Today we started reading our new book and the kids really dig it so far. That's a good feeling when you choose a book that's one you enjoy and they really enjoy it too.

Today one of my kids kneed another one of my kids in the crotch for no reason. From what I can gather there was no conflict or anything. They were standing in line and he just turned and kneed. The first I saw of it was when I looked over and the kid was crying. It kind of reminded me of when I was a kid and I punched my older brother in the stomach to see what would happen. Well, actually there was more to it than that...we were playing Space Invaders on Atari and he beat me and I turned and punched him in the stomach and took off running into the back yard. Of course he didn't chase me because he was doubled over trying to get his breath.

Speaking of my older brother, he just called to tell me that his wife just gave birth to their new baby. Congrats, broseph!

I was just told yesterday that I have until Friday to spend the rest of the money that was allotted to me for classroom supplies. So now Friday is going to be a mad dash to spend money I guess. I have my eye on some things like microscopes and a game type thing where there are buttons that go out for the kids to push so you can play Jeopardy type kids games and the person with the answer can hit the buzzer. That might be fun. I think I'll also buy some chalk...I need some of that.

I'm tired...I'm out. Probably won't be much of an update tomorrow because I'll be in classes all day but who knows...maybe the classes will be wild, wacky and blogworthy.

2005-10-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Get well, dad. I love you.

2005-10-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

Well, just as I expected they did not make it through a third day in a row with only 2 names or less on the board. That ended immediately when it came out that 7 students did not do their homework. So much for that. SO, they start over on their reward board where they have to get three days in a row for their first reward.

Today wasn't a bad day though. We had fun with magnetism and electromagnetism in science. They went to the library which is a nice little extra break for me on Tuesdays. Tomorrow we start our new book that we'll be reading as a class. It's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I loved that whole series when I was a 4th grader and I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who read that and didn't like it. So that should be fun.

During my english lessons I've been writing sentences that have the names of my students in them doing something silly....eating monkey brains, riding unicorns, stealing each other's homework and going on subsequent high speed chases etc... They love that but at the same time it seems like they lose control every time I do it and start going crazy. Maybe if I already had them written out on an overhead instead of turning my back and writing them on the board it would help. Maybe I'll try that.

I spent this afternoon trying to get ready for the sub that's coming for me on Thursday. I'm taking a big risk by trying to have her show a video that plays from my computer to the TV. I hope she doesn't get lost trying to do that. I may come back and find a high heel slammed through my monitor.

Have I ever told you about my dog? My dog is a nut. 40 lbs of pure energy and awe-inspiring chewing capabilities. She's used her mouth to rip the metal nozzles off of both my outside water faucets, she's chewed up every sprinkler I own, she likes to chew on bricks that she digs up in our back yard (relics of when the house was originally built I guess) and today she ripped a board out of the fence and made a door through which she pranced over to give our new back neighbors a visit. Then she came back and chewed the fence board in half. Funny thing is she never chews a thing she's not supposed to when she's inside. She's a sweet dog..just hyper as a 5 year old in a coffee shop.

Well, that's my day. Later.

2005-10-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

Another long day today. I was visiting my family and my dad who is sick in the hospital this past weekend so I didn't have time for lesson planning really. I have most of it done.

I'm going to be out one day this week for some inservice type stuff so I have to have a substitute that day. I'm trying to decide what would be the easiest assignments for both the sub and myself. I'm not looking forward to being out a day. I feel like it's just going to put me behind. I need to get this training though. It's pretty key for some stuff I need to teach.

Today I had the kids divide up into three groups and I assigned each group an article out of their Weekly Reader. The assignment was to read the article and then present the info to the class as if it's an evening news broadcast. I gave them ideas they could use and stuff but several groups ended up just reading through the article word for word. One kid even had the magazine directly in front of her face where you couldn't see her at all as she read. I told them I've never turned on the news and seen the anchorman reading articles to the camera. A couple of kids and one group really did do more what I asked for and did a good job of reporting and not reading. Some of them were kind of funny too.

My kid who's been out for a while with a bunch of unreturned assignments showed back up today...miracle of miracles. Another miracle was that he had a bunch of the assignments in his folder and they were actually completed. That's pretty incredible.

My little space cadet knocked my socks off in class today. He was actually paying attention in science and he raised his hands to answer or ask questions!! I was seriously dumbfounded and caught off guard by that. If you realized how hard it is to get him to pay attention for even 30 seconds you would be to. I don't know what caused it but I sure hope he keeps it up. He's a funny, likable kid and I know he's got some brains. I'd love to see him excel.

It seems like some things are kind of coming together. Relationships are warming up, kids who have really not worked much are working better in class... Today they actually had their second day in a row of only two names or less on the board all day! That means that if they get one more day in a row they get their first reward of a class period outside. Five days in a row gets them an extra recess. I don't think they can keep it up that long for sure...at least not at this point. I'll be surprised (but happy) if they make it through tomorrow with only two names...especially since we had homework last night...several kids are bound to not do it and that's automatic name on the board. We're also instituting a new school-wide rewards system tomorrow. That might help them.

I'm know I'm usually pretty cynical and whatnot but I really love teaching and I love my kids.

2005-10-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Finally, this week is over. It felt like this was the longest 4 day week ever. I think I'm just about all ready for report cards next week. Who knows though...it seems like every time I think I'm done something else comes up that I have to do.

We did the electricity/circuits thing in science today. That was fun. I created a circuit and then had two alligator clips in the middle and we'd touch them or clip them to various objects to see if the object was a conductor or an insulator. They wouldn't stop suggesting and offering things to test though even after I'd moved on. We had fun at the end of the day with our english too.

Oh man..I just realized I haven't even started doing my lesson plan for next week. I guess I'll be doing some weekend work.

Tonight we're going to a concert so I have to go because it's an hour and a half away. Later.

2005-10-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Another busy day. We studied static electricity in science today and the kids had fun watching each others' hair move around as it stuck to a balloon. They also thought it was cool to see all the little pieces of a kleenex attracted to a charged balloon. That was fun. We read a story about famine in Niger out of our little weekly reader magazine today too. My class all made comments about how "the N word" was on the weekly reader and I quickly corrected them. In the other class it never even came up. My class as a whole just seems less mature and has worse manners I think.

Since we're studying electricity this week I had them all walking out singing the 80's classic "Electric Avenue." We didn't learn it in class or anything...I just started singing it because we were talking about electricity. They'll know all the 80's classics by the time the year is over.

This morning the high school cheerleaders made another showing at our school to do some cheers and tell the kids about some homecoming activities. It was kind of funny watching them confusedly trying to line up with every other cheerleader facing the same way down the middle of the gym. That took some time.

Today was fire safety day so the firemen had a fire truck at school and the kids got to go see it and whatnot. Yippee.

I got more grading done today after school but it seems like I still have a lot left. It was another late day that stretched into the evening. I seem to have a lot of kids with missing assignments. That could be a problem if I don't have them by Friday with report cards and all.

Well, my dog is whining to go on a walk and I want to get back for the Astros/Cards game. Later.

2005-10-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy day as I predicted. It helped that I it's library day so I could send two of my classes to the library for 30 minutes each. That freed up more time to get some much-needed work done. I stayed up at the school until after 5pm. I turned on my classroom TV and watched some VH1 show about the top 50 childhood celebs and what happened to them or something. Does VH-1 show anything else besides "what happened to them?" shows, nostalgia shows and The Surreal Life? I don't have cable but it seems like that's what's showing pretty much every time I've cruised through that channel. So here's the update for anyone wondering: Corey Haim is fat, Blossom and the girl who played Winnie on The Wonder Years are both nerds, Tootie is fat, Screech does stand-up comedy which seems to mostly center around Saved By the Bell (you couldn't ask for an easier subject to make jokes about could you?), Blossom is fat, Horshack had a boxing match with Screech, Todd Bridges is fat, Molly Ringwald speaks french, Peter Brady is buff, Bobby Brady sort of looks like Sloth from The Goonies now, Urkel apparently makes a living writing a blog (what?! You can make money off of this?!!), Jonathan from Who's the Boss? is gay (shocking? I don't think so), the blonde chick from Family Ties is now a blackhaired chick and sings in a goth band, Anthony Michael Hall was geeky, then geeky cool, then nobody and now he's just cool (if I followed correctly).. well I could go on but you get the idea..

So anyway, I got a lot of grading done after school. Now I have to put it all in the computer and have the kids correct them before Friday. Well, I have more grading to do too.

Tomorrow we start electricity in science. That should be fun. I've got some experiments and demonstrations planned.

I've got some kids who just seem to sink farther and farther behind in the amount of work that they have not turned in. It drives me crazy. One of my kids who is the furthest behind was absent today too so now he's going to be even further behind.

Today during writing though my kid who is one of my worst writers and my tough nut actually started writing as soon as I gave the assignment and wrote a whole page. It was great. Usually I'll give the writing assignment on Monday and he'll still have a blank page on Wednesday or Thursday. So, at the end of class I wrote his name on the board but said I was putting it up there for good reasons instead of bad and put a big star around it and complimented him in front of everyone. He seemed pretty proud so maybe this will help inspire him. We'll see..I felt like that was one more brick removed from the wall at least. The girl next to him is little Miss Superwriter and after I complimented him in front of everyone she holds hers up and says "Look, I'm almost finished." Yeah, yeah...we know ya are, Danielle Steele.

Well, that's about all I've got. Later.

2005-10-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today was the parent conference day all day. Every single one of my parents that were scheduled for a conference showed up. That's great. Another teacher already had 5 no-shows before lunch.

The conferences went well. It was good to meet some parents that I hadn't yet met and hear some info that i wasn't aware of about some students. Some of the things I was told were kind of sad. I have so much to do this week. Lots and lots of grading to do which means staying late until it's done. Stinkage.

I talked to my little space cadet's mother today. Apparently he used to be a straight A student who was really involved until some things happened in his life and he completely changed. I feel for him. He definitely seems like a kid who needs some love and attention and yet he's not the type that seems to always be begging for attention. He's a sweet kid. They're talking about moving back to another school district soon. That's a shame...he doesn't need any more major change in my opinion and I'd rather him stay here where we are really trying hard to work with him and get him on track.

I have two kids who think they're boyfriend and girlfriend. One day the girl told me that the boy "loves her." I discourage that kind of junk...this is freaking fourth grade, not the Dating Game. The boy's mom already knew about it because apparently he talks about his "girlfriend" all the time. The girl's mom had no idea and she's super-protective to begin with. Both parents wanted them separated so I moved his desk away from hers before the day was over. They talk too much anyway.

Out.

2005-10-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm so late posting Friday's entry. I've been really busy the last couple of days doing things like hanging out with my wife, eating ice cream, watching football and going to gun shows. I know, I know...my life is a whirlwind of important activity.

Friday was kinda messed up. We had an unusual schedule because of some kind of practice for something that the other grades are doing. They need to practice in the cafeteria so we had to go to lunch early and change our PE/art time. That caused me to kinda get messed up on my own schedule and I completely forgot to give the spelling test I was supposed to give on Friday. Now I'm trying to decide if it would be fair to spring it on them Tuesday. Monday the kids don't have school. It's parent conference day and I just have conferences all day.

Next week is going to be a very busy week. Friday our grades are due for report cards. That means I have a lot of grading and entering of grades to do this week and a lot of corrections I need to get the kids to do before I can put the final grades into the system. That means that I'm going to be working late a lot next week. So, if I don't have an entry here on one or more days then you'll know why.

Well, it's late and I have to get up semi-early in the morning so I'm out.

2005-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

So this morning I finally had a kid from MY homeroom blow chunks during morning assembly. Great...I hope I don't get it. Luckily it was just a little bit.

Today just got off to a bad start in general. This morning after the throw-up we went back to my class and when I asked them to turn in their homework 7 different people didn't have it. Well, yesterday it was a similar number so I'd emailed the principal and told her that if she'd like to drop by I'm sure my class would LOVE to hear her thoughts on the topic of not doing your homework. She stopped by today and told those 7 kids that they had to come to her office during PE. She did the same thing for every 4th grade class. She ended up making them all sit in the cafeteria with their heads down during PE.

Actual class time went pretty well today. During reading we read a story about how the NCAA is banning Native American logos and mascots during post season games. We read two opinions on it and the kids then decided what their opinion was and gave reasons to back it up. There were some surprisingly good reasons given for both sides.

The kids had a good time during english too I think.

This afternoon though I was teaching when they came on the intercom and said "Would the owner of a blue ________ car please call the office?" So I called. I had a flat tire. A while back I ran over a mesquite thorn out at my family's land. The thorn was in the tire and I was aware of it but it was acting like a cork basically...keeping the air in. I was hoping it would hold until I get new tires (soon). It didn't. Today the "cork" popped out and left a good-sized hole. I tried to air it up with my compressor so I could get it to Wal-Mart for a patch but it wouldn't hold air long enough so I had to change it. Oh well...I have a full-sized spare. Hopefully that will last me until I can buy some new tires in a little over a week or so. We just bought my wife a new car so I don't really have the jack to buy new tires at this time. Maybe it's coincidence but I've had what seems like an unusually high number of flat tires since I bought these Yokohama Geolander tires (almost 60,000 miles ago).

Well, that's about all I've got today.

PS - BTW, if you read this and don't know me and would like to email me for any reason I now have an email address available in my profile. If you do know me please continue to use my old email address.

2005-10-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good. The kids really dug the science lesson this morning on how energy acts upon simple machines. I took my homemade "Incredible Machine" up to school which demonstrates a chain reaction involving 5 of the 6 simple machines and the kids really got into that. It's really not all that incredible, more like a "semi-incredible mediocre machine" but the kids enjoyed it. It uses a Hot Wheels car and a Wolverine action figure. I'm finding that any way you can make a lesson unique by bringing in memorable objects really helps a lot. Like when I did an experiment showing that water is more dense than oil I used Juicy Juice instead of water and that really stuck with them as well.

In the other class that comes to me for science and reading I was just blown away by this little girl today. She's been really worrying us because she hasn't done much and has had bad grades but today she was the star of the class. During reading she read really well and with a lot of inflection and comprehension of the mood etc.. and then in class she had all these fantastic questions and observations. Maybe she had some coffee this morning or something.. I don't know but whatever she's on I hope she gets more of it.

I had so many kids that didn't bring back their homework today. That's bums me out when I have so many kids that do that.

Today my kid who is probably my "toughest nut to crack" had the worst day he's had so far this year. I ended up having to send him to the office. It was just one thing after another and the final thing was putting soap in a kid's eye at the handwashing station.

Today I was observed by a person from the organization that I did my teacher training through. That was VERY encouraging because she gave me a really good evaluation and had lots of compliments for me. She said that she's seen a lot of teachers and can tell what's going on pretty quickly in any given classroom and that in my classroom the kids were on-task, enthusiastic and learning was maximized. That was really a day-brightener. That thing with the soap in the eye happened when she was there and she said that I handled it very well and in a way that was least disruptive to the other kids. Cool. Good to know I'm doing relatively well.

For the month of October we're doing this thing where someone puts a little treat in your box and then you pass it on and put little treats in three other people's boxes and so on... Someone put a little bag of candy and these fake hillbilly teeth in mine. They're not just regular hillbilly teeth though...one of the teeth kind of dangles as if it's really loose..like it's hanging on by a root and about to fall out. They're pretty gross but I think the kids will get a kick out of it when I throw them on during class. I need to wait for the right time.

Well, that's all. I'm out.