First Week Issues

Just to update you on why so many posts were on the same day.  I used an old gmail account and didn't know the password.  When I tried to get the password sent, it was sent to an old phone number that I no longer have.  I had given up hope of ever figuring out the password, so had started a new blog site.  Weirdly enough, I bought a new netbook so I can blog wherever I go and discovered the password, so I copied everything from the other blog.  And I wrote down the account name and password.  Hopefully, I won't lose the piece of paper I wrote it down on.

March 30th, Finally Friday!

Friday!  Finally!  For some reason, this week has dragged by.  Pretty good day with kids.  Reptile lady came with snakes, so I got an extra hour break when everyone went to see the show.  Got a lot of papers graded and straightened up a little in the room.  Also got my lumbriculus water changed.  All in all, a pretty good Friday.  Next week we get out for Good Friday, then three weeks until spring break.  After that, three weeks until the end of school.  I'm counting it down!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!  Talk again on Monday.

March 29th, 7am Parent Meeting

Had my parent meeting this morning about Fred2's behavior.  He is the student who breaks into song at the top of his lungs just when I get everyone quiet.  The one who shoves all the desks behind him back causing chaos to the students sitting in those desks.  The one who I send out into the hallway just so I can complete the lesson without having to stop to deal with him every thirty seconds, then when he gets out there he keeps sticking his head in the window and tapping to get everyone's attention.  I LOVE his mother!  I think you will too.  This is what she told me.  "Let me just say that I am a mother who cares!  And I know how Fred2 can be.  You can't beat him here, but I can.  He knows he better treat you how he treats me.  I don't care how big he gets.  I don't care how wide he gets. (He is well over 6 feet and at least twice as heavy as she is.)  He knows I will punish him.  Here are my numbers.  If you have ANY more trouble out of him, just call me.  I will handle it right away."  All the while, Fred2 stood beside her without making a sound or moving an inch.  I immediately put her number in my speed dial.  Next time I have problems with him, I'll simply call her number, hand him the phone and just keep teaching.  She was amazing!

Of course, talk today centered around my student who was sent to the hospital yesterday.  The stories were so interesting.  I refused to talk about the incident to the students (mainly because I want to see how Fred3 handles it when he comes back).  But I heard so many stories today.  "He blew up the lab.  That's how come we can't go in there anymore."  and "He blew himself up!  He won't be back to school this year."  Won't they be surprised when he shows up tomorrow.  I'm thinking of calling him tonight and telling him to wrap his face up just to freak them out, but I don't want what happened to become a joke.  I want them all to understand just how serious the incident was.  It was just pure luck that I happened to be facing him when he mixed the chemicals together.  Had I been at another workstation with my back turned, who knows what might have happened.  I know they think I was being a bit overzealous by insisting that he go to the doctor to get checked out, when he only mixed a very small amount, but he is the type of guy who will pretend to be fine even when he isn't and I would not have been able to live with myself if he had any serious side effects from his experience.    There's even a good side.  Now the students will see why I stress safety first in the lab and the importance of following directions.  Even if no one else learned that lesson, I know for a fact that Fred3 understands it now.

I did tell the students that we would not go back into the lab for a while because their safety is my primary responsibility and I just don't feel that I can keep them safe in there.  (I will be so paranoid when we do get back in the lab, trying to keep an eye on every single student every single second.  Right now, my nerves can't handle that.)

Ended up having to work a baseball game, so got to leave school early to get to the game.  Our ballpark does not have lights, so our games have to be played early.  I really hate that small town schools are so desperate for supplies.  Ended up getting home at around 5ish.  Tired and hungry.  Be well, BlogBuddies!  Happy Friday Eve to you all!  Talk to you tomorrow.

March 28th, I Spoke Too Soon...

Well, I should have known things were going too well.   The parent meeting from this morning got rescheduled until tomorrow. They forgot to tell me.  I showed up for it and no one else was there.  It was ok though, because it gave me a chance to catch up on lesson plans before heading to the cafeteria for duty.  Things were going fine until my last class of the day.  You know the one.  The one with the Freds.  On the plus side, nobody died (and whatever Fred3 mixed together to create the toxic gas, he could sell to the military for millions!).  On the negative side, Fred3 decided he didn't need to follow instructions while combining exothermic reactions and decided to mix ALL the ingredients together.  He's spending the night in the hospital (just for observation). Fortunately, no one else was injured.  I spent the remainder of the day cleaning up his mess, trying to ventilate and remove the substance; trying to keep the rest of the class calm and away from the fumes; sending Fred3 outside for fresh air, then to the nurse; getting the kids back to the room in time for the bell to ring,  looking up what possible substance he could have created and inhaled and get it to the nurse.  Needless to say, by the time school was out I was a mixture of stress, worry and hopelessness all rolled into one. As soon as I could after school, I rushed to the hospital and checked on his status.  He was enjoying his moment in the spotlight with students visiting him and teachers and staff checking in with him.  Plus he gets out of school tomorrow.  Lucky for me, the other two Freds were well behaved.

Back in the Lab

Unusually nice day today.  Not only was the weather excellent (especially for March), but students were awesome.  Still have cafeteria duty.  But actually got to do experiments with both chemistry classes.  Mainly because my problem children in one class have both gotten into trouble and parents were contacted.  Fred1 had another teacher call his dad yesterday and Fred2 got written up by me (for the 3rd time) and I have a 7am meeting with his mother tomorrow.  Needless to say, both of them were model students today.  I have never met Fred2's mom, so I hope everything goes well tomorrow.  If not, I'll have a lot to talk about on my blog, eh?  Anyway, I was so pleased with today's experiments that after school and after the ball game, I raced to Wal-Mart to get some more experiment supplies ($36 worth) so that we can continue to do experiments tomorrow. Hopefully, no one will blow up the lab!

Monday After Grad Exams

Well, it's the first day back after last week's graduation exams.  I approached this day with dread.  Usually, after graduation exams, students don't think they have to do anything else the rest of the year.  It is up to the teacher to make sure the students understand that they are expected to complete work and pay attention until the final bell rings on the last day.  Of course, after the past week of exams, I couldn't even remember what we had studied two weeks ago.  I made it to school at 7:10 ready to catch up, only to find out that I have cafeteria duty from 7:15 until 7:45.  Great.  No food fights, so not too bad.  However, I didn't get to my classroom until school had started, so no time to prepare.  Luckily, the kids were so sleepy, no one noticed that I'm just reading out of the book.

 My classes were pretty good today, in a drowsy sort of way, but I discovered that I had to watch the 7th grade class during my planning (last class of the day).  The 7th graders are monsters. Everyday, I read about all the 7th graders in ISS or ASD in my email.  They have a bad reputation.  I was hoping to spend my planning period coming up with some endothermic experiments that my chemistry kids could do tomorrow, but must babysit instead.  I know that in order to keep them in line, I'll have to have some work for them to do.  Just one problem:  I don't know what class they are in.  I ask the teacher who is sending them to me and he says "health".  Good.  I can do a health class.  I go online and print up the seven levels of health and figure I can discuss that with them for fifty minutes.  For the most part, it worked.

 I had to make one student go into the hall and stand because she couldn't stop laughing out loud every couple of minutes.

 Another had to turn over her sunglasses to me because she couldn't keep them on her head instead of her eyes.  And yet another was using a cell phone, very stealthily, she thought.  I tried twice to give her an opportunity to put it away.  Finally, I just went over to her and told her to put it away.  Then I used her as the perfect example of someone with a relaxed value system (spiritual health) and explained that she most likely didn't feel it was important to follow the rules at school, possibly because at home, her family doesn't put too much emphasis into the importance of rules.  It worked brilliantly.  She became flustered and started denying that she was like that.  I simply smiled while all eyes were on her and walked around as if I hadn't heard her.

 The bell rang right after that so the kids took off. Teacher, one;  7th graders, zero.  I rock!

Why is everyone anonymous?

Before I start posting tomorrow, let me explain how I will be doing things.  First of all, I am remaining anonymous because I plan to be perfectly honest about what goes on in my classes and I don't want anyone I work for suing or firing me over it.  I plan to not only tell what goes on, but also to express how I feel about it, so the language may not always be G rated.  All of my students and other teachers, administrators, etc., will be called Fred (Fred1, Fred2...), however, Fred1 will always be the same person, so if you like Fred1 you will be able to follow his or her antics throughout the year.  You will see a lot of the same Freds throughout the course of this blog!  I will be stating the "office politics" that go on at my school and many other things that the school probably doesn't want the public knowing.  In that same vein, I will cover not only the bad, but also the good.  Most days are fairly good, with only a sprinkling of, er, character, shall we say?  I hope you enjoy this blog and I hope to see your ideas, comments or questions!  Thanks for reading!

School from a teacher's perspective

I'm starting this blog to give everyone an idea about what goes on in the life of a teacher today.  I am a high school teacher and I have decided to share my days on this blog.  Each day after school, I will tell all the good and bad stories that have happened in my classes.  I would love to hear comments from other teachers, students and parents.  Let's see if my classroom is unique, or if students all over the country are behaving the same way.  Get ready!