Bummer

Sometimes we have students that are a major pain in the butt, but--for some unknown reason-- we love having in class. They don't do work, they are brutally honest, they are brilliant, hyper, talkative, constantly in motion... all the marks of a kid you don't want in class. But there they are, and you find yourself enjoying their remarks and craziness from time to time.

I have a kid like that this year. I nicknamed him Sunshine because he always stops in and says good morning, always seems to have a smile on his face and has one of the biggest hearts of any student I've had so far.

His problem is that he doesn't think before he acts. He realizes what he did was wrong after the fact, but he has a hard time not acting on impulses. There are a few of his teachers that he can't seem to get along with. There have been many times he's ended up in my classroom after blowing up and needing somewhere to chill out. He's been my "bodyguards" on my hall monitor walks quite a few days.

One of his other major problems is that he is so hard on himself. He wants to do well, but doesn't like to sit down and do work. Or he gets distracted and forgets about it. Or he has to sit too long and ends up slowing down and falling asleep. He has the highest expectations for himself, and when he finds something slightly difficult or challenging, he stops believing in himself, gives up and starts beating himself up over it. If a teacher, at that moment, pushes him, he can become incredibly upset, leading to a lot of problems.

All of this led to a meeting today where it was decided that he'll go away for a while, to an alternative school in another county, to hopefully make up credits and come back ready to try our school again. It's definitely the best decision at this time because he needs to make up credits to be able to graduate before he's 20 and this program can help him do that. He is determined right now to earn a diploma, so this could be a step in the right way. I really hope it is because we all want to see him reach the level of success we know he's capable of. I'll miss having him in class because he is brilliant, helpful, and hilarious. He's talkative and disruptive and hyper, but he can also see things in the literature we read that a lot of other kids don't pick up on. I'm pretty bummed that he won't be in my class for the rest of the year, but maybe I'll see him in a class next year.

snow days

Today is snow day number 5.

We had school yesterday, but woke up this morning with snow falling hard again. At first, 98% of the schools in the area tried to start with a 2 hour delay. About half an hour ago, they called saying it was cancelled and a majority of those 2 hour delay schools switched to cancel the day. The snow is supposed to stop, but not until after students would have to be transported to school. So far, I've had one Odd day and one Even day with my classes this semester.

Yesterday my classes surprised me by being a little more focused than I expected. We got through the intro work for both plays and actually ended up reading a good chunk of Act I of both Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. That was a load off of my back. Plus, as I look back on last year, this is about where I was already in the second week of Midsummer because there were interruptions and I did a lot more activities with the terminology and themes before we started reading. Once I realized that, I relaxed a bit. Another positive is that my English 9 kids already have a general idea about R&J, liked discussing the true/false statements and actually seemed excited and ready to read. Also: they seemed to understand it already (more than I expected, I mean-- it is Shakespeare, always a challenge for HS kids) and a few of them even got the humor in the first scene. As for Midsummer, that play introduces so many characters to begin with that the students were at first confused. Shakespeare throws out a lot of names and conflicts at the very start, so I can understand their confusion, especially after days of not having class. 7th period was pretty chatty and hyper, but less rowdy than I expected and it seemed like a few of them were catching on. That play gets easier as it goes on, so I'm still looking forward to teaching it for a second year. My English 10 kids are awesome and I think this play is definitely their style, if the snow could stop interrupting the schedule.

This weekend and the snow day on Monday led to me finishing my part of my application to grad school. That's a great feeling. All I'm waiting on is transcripts to be sent from WMU to VCU and two references (they've been held up by the snow days, but both say they can get it to me by the end of the week). I have everything I need to work on Romeo & Juliet, lesson plans and updating my classroom site, so I'll use this day to work on anything I would've worked on during my planning period. The only thing I don't have here that I had to do today was the failure letters teachers were responsible for sending out, but that can be done tomorrow.

Just remembered something

We have another day off, which means another day to make up. It's just as well cause it just started snowing like crazy here.

David and I were talking and I remembered a conversation I had with a student yesterday (my only day this week with students, and a day when I only have two classes)

Student: I have a question, not related to Shakespeare, but I was thinking...

Me: ....yes?

Student: They're getting rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell right? How many people do you think got dishonorable discharges because they were found out as being gay? Hundreds of thousands? Thousands?

Me: I don't know, thousands?

Student: How do you think they're going to feel when DADT is gone? And it's okay to be gay in the military?

Me: I'm not sure, probably pretty crappy.

Man, sometimes I am blown away by students and their minds.

an early spring break?

It snowed here last weekend. It started very early Saturday and didn't end all day. We got about a foot of snow, which is a lot for this area.

We weren't in school for three days. Three. days. They had us come in yesterday for a teacher work day, so I finished quite a bit of work. This morning was a two hour delay for students, but not for us, so even more time to work. Monday was just a teacher work day, so whatev, but the other two? I had stuff to do. Lots of stuff. The start of the second semester. At least I'm not like other teachers who missed benchmark testing, but still. It was nice to have days off, but also shifts everything around.

Also: they didn't build in any snow/weather days. February 15th was supposed to be a day off, but is now scheduled to make up a day we had off in November due to a power outage. Now we have two days to make up if they count the work day Wednesday as a normal day, three days if they don't. When will we make them up? Spring break? Memorial day? The end of the year?

Oh, did I mention that we'll be getting more snow this weekend? We might get out early for that. Who knows.

I would love it if I never saw another snow flake this winter. Or next year. Or the year after. I love(d) living in a state that didn't see more than a dusting of snow.

In happier news, today was the first day for Shakespeare and it went smoothly. Second period (English 9) had a great conversation to introduce Romeo & Juliet and 5th period (English 10) got through everything we had to and seemed intrigued by A Midsummer Night's Dream. A lot of the students mentioned that they were happy to be back in school, mostly because it beat being stuck in the house for days on end or facing driving in snow in the country. At lunch, a lot of my former students were reminiscing about how much they loved Midsummer last year, especially the parts that had Pyramus & Thisbe and the Mechanicals. That's good to hear! I was expecting today to be rough, full of rowdy kids and nonsense; instead, today turned out nicely. Whew!

goodbye January! goodbye first semester!

I kept meaning to get around to updating this, but it never happened. I've debated just giving up, but a lot of this is to remind me of the good times I have being a teacher, so I don't think that'll happen.

Highlights of the last week or so:

• While students were working on their exam review, someone asked me if I read Watership Down. This led to a conversation where we bonded over the book about bunnies and how sad and boring it was. We all didn't like it for various reasons. I was surprised that they still had kids in 6th grade read it. It's funny that most of the kids didn't really remember the title of it, but once you mentioned it was the book with the bunnies, they knew exactly which one it was and all had the same basic reaction: "Ohh, the book with the bunnies--I hated that book!"
• My grandma on my mom's side passed away--the same day we got the car fixed, of course--and a few students found out when they noticed I wasn't my normal self. A few stopped by the classroom to give me hugs and tried to cheer me up.
• We got a new car and have a possible buyer for the Jetta. Nice.
• I'm getting ready to teach A Midsummer Night's Dream again and Romeo & Juliet for the first time. I'm looking forward to both, but I am a little nervous. Anyone that's ever taught Shakespeare and had to deal with the difficulty of students who just don't get it would understand. I'm hoping that everyone comes through in one piece and actually understands the play in the end. Oh, and it would be great if the amount of whining about how Shakespeare writes was at a minimum, but that never happens.
• I've been carpooling with another teacher and it's been awesome!
• Last Monday, we had an event for freshmen that helped them study for their exams. They had snacks, lemonade, and hot chocolate as well as teachers wandering around to help them out if they were stuck. I didn't go to last year's, but I went this year. It was great seeing all those kids hanging out and studying. It's a good habit to introduce them to and I hope it sticks.
• It snowed again this weekend. I was supposed to be in school today for a teacher work day since the first semester ended on Friday, but that didn't happen. I'm not even sure if we'll have school tomorrow since the snow is sticking around and there's another storm possibly coming in tomorrow with more snow. What state do I live in again??