We Are the Champions!

Today my middle school ladies won the city-wide volleyball championship! I managed to make it to some of the game, and it was awesome to see them all working together at something and supporting each other. Definitely a great way to end the season and to head off for Thanksgiving!

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

My students like to play matchmaker since they know that I do not have a boyfriend (my bad on being honest when they asked that question) and this always leads to hilariously awkward moments. Last year's worst was when they dragged the assistant basketball coach up to my room because all the girls on the team thought he was cute and they wanted him to meet me. He was definitely not my type, but actually did try to call me- and I still hear about it. Today was another of those fun little moments. As I was leaving, I was talking to some of my 8th grade girls who were still outside the building after volleyball practice, when out walked a twenty-something guy. There are always people from the school district or one of Philly's universities trying to do research or have meetings or do mentoring or any other of a plethora of things in the school, so I've kind of learned to ignore the people walking in and out. Today, however, one of my girls says loudly as the guy passes by, "Hey, Ms. D, he looks pretty nice, " and winks at me. I'm going to hope that the random guy just didn't hear that one. I guess it's nice of them to care that much?

On another note, our girls' volleyball team, despite being more concerned with matchmaking and fashion than schoolwork, is playing in the city championship tomorrow! Here's good luck to the Duckrey girls!

Thank Goodness for Veterans

Thank goodness we had today off. Yesterday I had an observation with my Teach For America advisor, and the class he saw was much worse than it usually is. Maybe because it was the last period before a day off, I don't know. Anyway, I've certainly been feeling a bit down about the fact that I got observed on one of my worst days- I would love to have someone see my class on a good day but it seems like people never come in on those days.

On the plus side, the students did seem to pull out the important parts of the lesson when they summarized the lesson on the exit slips I give after every class. There was one funny one though- the lesson had been about Mesopotamian agriculture and students discussed where their food comes from. When asked to tell what the most important thing she learned today was, one student told me that the most important thing she learned was where canned tuna fish comes from because she never realized it was a fish before. I'm glad I could teach her something...

A Great Moment

Just in case I don't have enough to do teaching a new subject to three different grades, effectively meaning I am teaching 3 new subjects, I decided to sign on to do my school's Power Hour, which is certainly nothing like what that term meant in college. It is an hour and a half after school 4 days a week when kids who are below grade level on reading and math skills get extra, small group instruction. I am doing the literacy power hour 2 days a week (Mondays and Wednesdays) because I am basically a bleeding heart- neither of the 2 English teachers at my school wanted to do it, and I felt like it was important enough to take it on.

I have been doing Power Hour for about 3 weeks now, and it had definitely added stress to my life- instead of just 3 preps, I now have a 4th for Power Hour. Other teachers who had signed on to do it have already quit, and we have switched math teachers twice, and I wasn't sure it was worth it- until Monday around noon, when I was running to the bathroom because it was finally my prep period. I ran into one of my students coming out of the girls' bathroom, and she stopped me to show me her most recent test in reading: a B. This girl is in learning support for reading and math because she is behind on her skills, so I was obviously super excited for her, but I almost cried when she said, "Actually, I wanted to thank you for helping me." I haven't had a student thank me for helping them before- middle schoolers tend not to think like that- so it was truly an awesome moment. Made even more awesome when I graded her most recent social studies test and she got a 96% :)