Holding on for Week 2

Hey everybody. How are you? Good? Good. I'm glad. I'm doing pretty well myself, thanks. You probably read my extremely long post summarizing my first week of school. You may remember it started off good, was three days of torture, then ended ok. Well the last two days have been pretty ok, too, so I'm feeling ok. Let me fill you in.

Monday was Labor Day of course so as could have been expected, I wasted practically the whole day. I told you guys I was gonna go work on Sunday... Yea, that didn't happen. I spent the day with my boyfriend again. I didn't come home until Monday around noon where I spent two hours eating lunch before looking at work. Then I kind of looked at work for another couple hours. I'm having a really hard time planning. I think maybe I'm getting better at it, but I'm still not even a single day ahead. I need to figure out what my 8th graders are doing tomorrow and Friday after I finish this post. Then dealing with the ever changing attendance in my classes takes hours, too.

I was warned before school started that my class list may be completely different in two weeks than it is the first day of school. Well that wasn't a lie. Every single day I come to work about 1 to 3 kids are gone from a class and 3 to 5 kids are new. It is near impossible to keep track of, especially when the computer system at the school is completely off track. I have to keep these ever changing records in three different places while the office is sending my attendance sheets that are 50% wrong to fill out every day. It's a hassle to say the least. Then put on top of that the fact I've been teaching science for a few days now and new kids roll in days behind in work. Seriously, how are these parents taking so dang long to sign up their kids for school? "Oh I'm tired today John. I'll send you to school next week." Come on! That's not even asking for you to support your kid. That's just asking you to abide by the basic laws of guardianship. Sheesh. The ghetto sucks.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I kind of re-taught the whole lesson I did with them on Thursday that failed. We went through the worksheets as a class mostly since they were getting all the wrong answers. And those two kids that are hell on Earth? Well, they were almost alright. I was shocked. In the morning, one of them said "Hi, Ms. Newbie" in the hallway so I wished her a good morning. I made sure to do the same with a smile to the other one, too. Though they were still out of their seats, and the boy checked out 2/3 through class and went to the back to sleep, they weren't causing chaos. I finished the lesson. Yay! I just hope and hope and hope some more that they keep having good days like that.

I did come across another problem child in my GT class. He was new and was talking talking talking the whole time. The class added up 4:30 minutes of wasted time, so I was going to keep the class that long after school. I also wanted to let the kids I gave good behavior tickets to go, though, because I hate punishing those who did nothing wrong. Well when I tried to let sweet kids out, this problem child starts pushing my arm to let him past. We argued for a minute, then he finally did push through and run down the hall. As I leaned out to yell, the entire rest of my class ran out behind me. So that bombed.

I tried to call his house several times but the number didn't work, I guess. No one picked up. I wrote a referral to the office, though, to document it. But good news to me! Another teacher in the school was treated exactly the same way today by the same kid, so he demanded the principal remove him from the GT class. Score! Problem child is not in GT anymore! But what if he is transferred into my other 8th grade class... ohhhh... that would be too much to handle. Three monsters? No. I won't let that happen. Well, I'll try not to at least. (It's not like I have much of a say).

Today, my 7th graders reviewed scientific method stuff and took a quiz. I explained to them my policy with exams is you can always re-take it at lunch time to improve your score. I student taught in a county where that was a county-wide rule. Mostly the smart kids just re-take quizzes over and over again until they get 100%. Kids who score poorly don't usually take advantage of it, unfortunately. But I like the idea that it's more important they learn it sometime than prove to me they know it now. I'll hound kids to get them to actually come in at lunch, too. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm hoping it will instill some confidence in these kids who feel like they can't succeed.

A horrible thing happened, though. One new boy who I let go to the bathroom came back with a bloody nose. He said a boy in the bathroom just randomly punched him in the face. I asked if they got in a fight and he said, "No, I don't know anyone here. This is just my second day at this school!" Even for this school in Southeast I think that's bad. Fights, sure, but random acts of violence against perfectly sweet kids? That's insane! I feel so bad for this boy and I hope he isn't scarred for the rest of the year. I also hope someone comes forward with information on who did it, but I know that will never happen. The thug gets off free. Again, the ghetto sucks.

Anyway, I should really focus on figuring out what I'm doing tomorrow so I'm not up until 11:00pm again. Goodnight all!