April Fool's

Tomorrow is a scary day.  All my students are very into the whole concept of April Fool's, and I am very worried that I will have one (or more) tricks pulled on me during the course of the day.  I myself have never been very good at coming up with pranks, and therefore know I will not match up to anything my students will be able to come up with.

I'm compensating by showing a movie of the book we just read ( The Outsiders), which is a huge teacher no-no at my school, and with my luck I will get caught.  Which, by the way, is so unfair, since the science teacher used Twister AND The Day After Tomorrow during her severe weather unit.  One of the objectives on my curriculum is to have students evaluate a variety of media...movies count as a variety of media!  Well, here's to hoping that this preemptive rant improves my luck a little so that I get away with it...

Scary Moment?

I'm on facebook too much, and have recently become interested (read: addicted to) in those quizzes you can take and post in your newsfeed.  They are truly a great time-waster, as evidenced by the number of people who I know should be lesson planning who are instead posting these quizzes.

Anyway, I just took one to find out what my ideal job is (because hell if I know, I may as well let facebook help me out with that one) and it told me teacher.  Um.  Seriously?  I'm not sure if that's scarier than the girl coming out of the TV in the ring or a positive thing suggesting I picked the right career path at the moment.  Though I do have to wonder...what does my preference for KitKats over plain chocolate bars really reveal about whether or not I should be a teacher....

TGIF

My principal is letting us leave at 1:30 today!

In other news, I just had a conference with a parent who told her son that because his grades were so low, he wasn't getting that $300 to go down to the Polo store today!! Want to adopt me? I'll get A's and B's if you'll give me $300.

Meet the Parents

I had a very interesting parent-teacher conference today. The parent of one of my brightest but toughest (and one of my favorite, though I'm not supposed to admit that) students came in today, and this was my first chance to meet her, despite numerous phone conversations (and messages that, in hindsight, probably got deleted by the student before they ever reached her mother). Shaheeda's attitude in class has been difficult, to say the least, and her behavior has certainly been less than desirable. In my head, I had constructed this horrible home situation in which no parent seemed to care what Shaheeda did or said, leading to the angry student who frequently lashed out in my class.

I very quickly discovered I was wrong. Shaheeda's mother lit up when she saw Shaheeda's report card- almost entirely A's and B's, and all her grades had risen tremendously from the end of the first marking period. Shaheeda's mother and I chatted for quite a bit, discussing everything from Shaheeda's most recent essay (which her mother hadn't even known she was working on) to our mutual love for the Twilight series. I learned that Shaheeda's mother worked most days and it was difficult to get off work, that Shaheeda has several sisters, all of whom take away the attention Shaheeda so desperately wants, and that her mother had never heard from Shaheeda about any of the positive changes to her report card or the high marks she received on school projects. As I look back at this conference now, it's clear I seriously have to change my outlook- her mother definitely cares, even if she doesn't always call me back. And, I need to call home for positive things MUCH more often.

First Post, and it's only....March?

Now that it's March 25, I finally feel like I have my feet under me enough to maintain a blog (even if I can't always maintain my life in any kind of organized way). Of course, that could just be the end of the PSSAs talking...just like the kids, I kind of feel like the year should be over NOW. If only Pennsylvania made any sense and put their standardized tests at a reasonable time, like, oh, the end of the year. I'm going to try to use this to keep folks updated on my life, but no guarantees.

We began our second round of parent-teacher conferences today, and unlike last time, I do not feel as terrified as I did back in November. Maybe I have finally realized that the murderous looks on the faces of some parents are not directed at me (though the ones on the faces of my failing students might be). However, between the end of PSSAs and parent-teacher conferences, I am realizing how unsatisfied I am with how my year has gone. I realize I still have three months with these kids and they are valuable three months in which my students can be motivated to learn a lot, but in the end I wish it hadn't taken me this long to get it together, because only now do I have a clear vision of the teacher that I can be, if I try. It's just unfortunate that this realization comes as a result of feeling as though I have failed those students that failed my class this marking period. As veteran teachers at Duckrey are beginning to feel as though they are winding down, there is a part of me that is geared up and so ready to try new things that I was super unprepared for before.

Back in October or November, the science teacher at Duckrey, who is a truly amazing lady and is definitely one of the reasons I didn't walk out of the school and never come back in the fall, told me that she reached February of her first year of teaching and was ready for it to end because she wanted to try all new things, to have a fresh start. I'm beginning to see EXACTLY what she meant.