My students are following me!

Today, when I logged into the attendance, a little window popped up and told me a new student would be joining my class tomorrow. When I read the name, I actually let out a little scream briefly distracting my mentor teacher's class. Could this really be the same student I taught last year? Her last name is really common, but her first it totally unique. I liked this girl last year in my class in DC. She gave birth to a baby boy in, I don't know, like January? She did the home-school thing for about two months and then returned to my class. When she came back she was really good about taking responsibility for herself. We were in the middle of a project and she asked me for some extra time to do it. I asked her why and she said, "I'm raising a baby and going to school Ms. Newbie - this stuff is hard!" I had to laugh because it was so true. About a week later she had all the work she needed and she earned a B that quarter. So I actually find it really funny and nice that I'm getting this same girl again!

I stopped by the counselor's office to see if this really was the same girl when it occurred to me that the best way to check would be to see if her brother was coming too. This brought forth a whole different set of emotions. The girl I like, the brother, well, not so much. And it turns out he is coming, but he won't be in my classes. So here's the story of this boy:

I mentioned a couple posts ago how half way through the year I acquired a new class. Well this student was in that troublesome class. He didn't really stand out, at first, though. He was one of three boys who literally did nothing. They didn't even write their names on papers. They just leaned back in their chair and watched the class happen, but not in a rude way. You know how some kids lean back and it's like, "What makes you think I'm going to do any work for you?" These kids were more like, "Why work when you can just vegitate?" So I concerned myself more with teaching the 8 students who wanted to learn. On a regular basis I would call the students who wanted to learn forward and give them the lesson while the other 12 kids went to the back and rolled dice. That's all that could be done with this particular class. And even with those 8 kids it was a struggle to get them to focus.

So anyway, not long after I receive this class, the school was broken into in a big way. Over a three day weekend, a group of students walked into the apparently unlocked back door, broke the windows of nearly every classroom in the building and stole items from almost all of those rooms. (My room went untouched). They stole one of my colleague's personal laptop, another's stereo, some computers, etc. Well, we do have cameras in the school, so a few days later it's common knowledge amongst the staff in the building that this boy was the only one of the group that was a student here. The others were friends he must have brought along. For weeks this boy was absent, but we heard no kind of news about what was to happen to him. My colleagues said nothing was ever done about their personal possessions being stolen, so my guess is a police report was never even filed. A little later, I am asked to sign a letter acknowledging the boy is to be transferred to Choice Academy, the alternative school in DC. Despite this, for the last few weeks of school, this boy continues coming here. He never actually went to Choice.

Of course this kid failed big time. During the last days of school, the principal and the school secretary asked me if I could change his grade to a D. Apparently my F would have been the only thing holding him back. So I did. Under any other circumstances I would not give a student a grade they didn't deserve, but at the time it seemed to serve everyone's interests to get this kid out of the building. Plus I was leaving and it was the principal asking me. Was it really worth it to put up a fight in the interest of academic integrity?

Ha, well, here it came right back to bite me and I couldn't feel more guilty about it. Of course I shouldn't have changed his grade. And you know, I wouldn't feel so bad about it if I was teaching him myself, but I feel like I have unfairly brought a bad element to this good school and thrown a dangerous case on my fellow teachers.

I told the guidance counselor and she said both the brother and sister are listed as homeless. I'm going to email one of the students I'm still in contact with now and ask if he can find out if they really are out of their mom's house or what. It's a common thing in SE DC to lie about your address so you can go to a better school.

On a different note, I broke one of my own rules and brought work home with me. I should get to that. Later peeps!

Back-to-School Night

Hello again! It's late and I'm tired, but I really wanted to document how happy I am right now. I got back a short time ago from Back-To-School Night which was a success. I'd say I had about 6 parents per class and they all seemed to like me - and that's the whole point, right? Seriously, though, I can hear how much more confident I sound, not just because I'm better at public speaking, but because I know my class is just organized better this year.

For instance, last year when let students re-take quizzes, they kept the highest score. That ended up in a lot of students re-taking quizzes hoping they'd get lucky and score better. There was no connection in their mind between studying and succeeding, so it kind of defeated the whole purpose. This year, they keep the re-take score better or not.

I'm starting a club this year that I'm really excited about. It's going to be based on the eCyberMission competition hosted by the US Army. I couldn't come up with a non-nerdy name for it, so my homeroom students named it for me: Mi$$ion Impossible - win cash with your science fair project. Basically, its a separate competition but similar enough to the science fair that I can help students tailor their projects so they can submit the same work to both competitions. I think science fair is a huge waste of time, but I really like this eCyberMission thing. Instead of focusing on things that students find so boring, it focuses on asking the students to propose a real solution to a real problem in their community. Talk about relevance.

And the rest of my first week and the beginning of this week have been great. I'm not going to say easy or stress-free. I was at work until 6:00 every day and until 7:30 on Friday. I'm still a slow lesson planner. But it occurred to me today that I haven;t put a single check on my clipboard yet. I have not once had to move past just asking a student to stop. They always did the first time! Glory Glory Hallelujah! I love these kids! I can't wait until their personalities really come out, because the only down side right now is they are kind of boring. It's like they are too easy to teach. And by the way, I'm not the only teacher at the school who has noticed this. I heard another one saying the same thing; that we must have gotten a really good crop this year.

And I am so missing some of my babies from last year. I'm emailing with one of my favorites and I get phone calls once in a while from another. But some other kids I am just dieing to know how they are doing. I want to ask them how they're doing in school. Basically I'm thinking of my lunch crowd. By the end of the year I had a group of about 15 students who ate lunch with me every day. I miss them. But you know what, of course, there were certainly that many students I hated to see every day in class. I can think of about 5 students I truly hated on a personal level. Hopefully I won't be hating any students this year. That was really the main reason I left. How could I possibly teach if I actually hated some of the kids. That's just so wrong. It's against teacher code, and even my own personal values. I clashed with that culture. I think switching schools will mean that culture is not quite as pervasive.

Tomorrow we stop doing review activites (metric system, latin roots, etc.) and do our first lab. I'm doing the same paper towel lab I did last year. The only thing is I ran out of time to assign lab groups. Oops. Maybe just have them count of by four this time and assign groups next time? We'll see.

So in summary, still love my new school, but can't make any real substantial judgements yet. I'll get back y'all later. Until then, have lovely days.