Thin Day Yesterday we had many, many kids gone due to activities. There wasn't a whole lot I wanted to cover with that many absences, so after reading over a poem we played Apples to Apples. They loved it. The only problem I saw was that one 9th grader made a really big deal out of the "cocaine" card, and while looking over one of my Native American kids' shoulder, I noticed he had a card that said "discovering America." Cuuuuh-rist.  ¶ 6:34 AM 0 Comments

  Feb 8 Yesterday after school I headed over to the clinic to get my knee checked out. I injured it about two years ago and while it's never really given me major problems, it's never really healed quite right either. These days it's hard to leave it in a deep bend (in fact, it won't bend nearly as deeply as the other knee) and if I leave it bent for any period of time it's hard to straighten out without significant stiffness and/or pain.

So I finally decided that, now that I have decent insurance, I'd get it checked out. The P.A. at the clinic referred me to an orthopod here in town at 1:15 today.

Getting the time off wasn't too horrendous. Lennie, the head office lady, is notoriously melodramatic about teachers requesting time off. Such requests are usually recieved by deep sighs and minor comments about being lucky if she can find anyone to sub. This time, however, Lennie simply said, "I'll see what I can do and give you a call." A few minutes before the first bell rang, she called and said she had someone to cover the last three periods of the day.

So I headed over to the doctor's office. After the routine paperwork, I was escorted into a small exam room. The doctor came in, asked a few rapid fire questions, felt around my knee for a minute or two, and left. An assistant of some sort took me to an X-ray room, zoomed in on my knee for a few quick X-rays, and then escorted me back. I'd tried to crack a joke about making sure the X-ray machine didn't zap my manparts by mistake, and the tech just kind of blew me off. Everyone in the place was absolutely humorless.

Back in the exam room, I read for about three minutes before the doctor came back.

"There's nothing wrong," he said.

"Okay," I said.

"The X-ray doesn't show any bone damage at all, so the pain you're feeling might be due to cartilage. We'll need an MRI to know for sure. Any questions?"

"Uh, no..." I began. Actually, I had a ton of questions and still do. I just couldn't think of them right at that second.

"Good," the doctor snapped. "My assistant will get the MRI appointment set up." He left.

And that was that. The entire trip took 25 minutes, with the doctor actually speaking with me for a total of about three.

Meanwhile, back at school, I missed my last three classes - which was actually kind of a nice break - and two IEP meetings, which is not cool at all. I had the foresight to email the special ed people with my thoughts about the behavior and grades of the students in question.

Tonight I'm trying to put together some sort of plan. One of our instructional facilitators gave me some great ideas, and Fridays are always kind of lame anyway with absences and such, so we'll see what shakes.

9th - wasn't there; asked substitute to have the students start the unit 3.1 test essay portion
10th - HW 8 and 9; Latin lesson on T/W; heritage of language & culture  ¶ 7:27 PM 0 Comments

  Feb 7 We have a screwy schedule at STHS - it's called a "modified block" and it means we have 8 periods on Monday, Thursday, and Friday, and block schedule on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Wednesday is also an "early out" day, but when they say "early out," they mean "early out for the students," because for teachers it means "early out for the students and then an hour of bureaucracy."

The last half hour of early out Wednesday is dedicated - or supposed to be, anyway - to silent, sustained reading. Now, let me be clear: as a language arts teacher, I'm all for silent, sustained reading. The more kids read, the better.

The trick is getting them to read.

Today wasn't actually too bad. Oh, sure, some kids just refused to read and drew or spaced out, but the majority did read. One of my all-stars, a dreadlocked 14 year old whose cognitive abilities are far beyond his peers', had felt the need to belt out lovesongs during the previous class, but he calmed down once the reading started.  ¶ 4:26 PM 0 Comments

  ... And We're Back! What exactly does one say after an absence of this magnitude? I dunno. So I won't.

But here's the deal. I'm officially a teacher now, and I spent a good deal of last summer daydreaming about publishing a novel based on my experiences as a first year teacher. And for the first few months, I was able to go home at night and write out scenes, stories, and anecdotes from the classroom.

Eventually I started slacking, mostly because I was just plain exhausted at night. Sadly, this means that many of my best and funniest stories are pretty much lost. Oh, sure, I know the stories - but they've dulled considerably even when I think about them now.

So this blog will henceforth be my repository of classroom stories. Let the games begin.  ¶ 7:26 PM 1 Comments