Playing Hooky

I’m playing hooky today. I’d been wanting to take a Mental Health Day for quite a while, but after Monday (the PSSA letter), I had to take one soon. I always have faint circles under my eyes from allergies, but Monday afternoon, everyone said I looked like I had two black eyes. (I did.) Over [...]

Read Full Post »

Finally

My principal finally believes me about how misbehaven and moronic my class is. All it took was explaining their confusion over turning in a math quiz if they were done and keeping it on their desk if they weren’t as she was making sure I was okay after receiving a personally delivered written reprimand from [...]

Read Full Post »

Twilight

When I first heard all the hoopla about Twilight, I thought, “Big whoop, it can’t possibly be as good as Interview with the Vampire.” And it’s not, but it’s different, and I guess thankfully not as provocative or gory. However, it is definitely not a book for kids. (Though on the penpal list [...]

Read Full Post »

Time Card 2/16 to 2/22

We had off on Monday and Tuesday for President’s Day. The school building was open so I went in to clean up. I got a lot done!
Monday: 6H 20 cleaning
Tuesday: 2H 30 brainstorming curriculum ideas with my principal friend
Wednesday: 10H 20
Thursday: 9H 40 including a 2 hour union negotiation committee meeting
Friday: 10H 15 including 1H [...]

Read Full Post »

Singing Screamo ?

My friend SunSpray teaches in the Bahamas, and we are going to have our students write penpal letters to each other.  We both had our classes write down some basic info so we can match up our kids.  I had a few who said one of their hobbies is “singing screamo”.  One kid described it [...]

Read Full Post »

Contract Negotiations

I had a union meeting today as part of the Settlement Task Force.  We are in charge of letting people know how contract negotiations are going (though they never give any real info about progress anyway) and would be the ones to call a strike, if it came to that.  FYI, there is almost nothing [...]

Read Full Post »

It’s a Girl!

I got a new student today.  Thankfully, she is a girl.  I suspect part of the problem this year has been the huge imbalance between the number of boys and girls – at one point I had 16 boys and 9 girls.  I had that a few years ago, and didn’t mind then, but these [...]

Read Full Post »

Strengths and Weaknesses

In an attempt to encourage my class to get along better, the social worker led an activity about fitting in and making friends. First she had six kids participate in a skit that showed how it feels to be left out. That segued into how people’s weaknesses can leave them out of groups. Then we [...]

Read Full Post »

Time Card 2/9 to 2/15

Monday 2/9: 9H
Tuesday 2/10: 11H 40
Wednesday 2/11: 8H 40
Thursday 2/12: 8H 55
Friday 2/13: 8H 20
Weekend: Nothing – I’ve got Monday and Tuesday off, and after Friday, I need it!!!
I still keep plugging away even though by Friday I was ready to quit. PSSAs are quickly approaching, and the year will be over before I [...]

Read Full Post »

Done. Finito.

I walked out today. I walked out of my class. I went to the office to tell the principal I was going home; I made it halfway there before I remembered both she and the AP were out of the building. So I stood in the hallway outside of my room for five minutes, taking [...]

Read Full Post »