Monday, March 31, 2008
Awesomest Seventh Period Ever!
So I had to leave a little earlier this morning then normal because of the snow. I made it fine, but I had heard that about twelve teachers were delayed. In fact the science class that I help out in first period had no teacher, she was in an accident on the freeway, I heard that she was okay but that she couldn't come at all today. I just had the students watch a movie, I would have done something else but I'm not really in on the planning of that class. All the rest of my classes were pretty mundane, except for seventh period (that's what this whole post is about anyway). The principal came in during seventh to observe the lesson, and it went really well, all the students were focused, they participated in the discussion, and everyone got their assignment done. It ROCKED! After class the principal told me that I did a great job, and that she could tell that I really knew what I was doing. I was ecstatic as I left the school, I finally got feedback about my teaching from higher ups and it was amazing. Refer to the title of this blog. Many times.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The End of The Crazy Week
On Thursday all of the 8th graders had an activity, they went roller skating or something I don't really remember. Because of this my classes were at half capacity. This also happened to be the day that the main district special ed coordinato showed up unannounced, and with the classes only half as large as usual the kids were amazingly good, I got through all of my lesson plans with no crazy outbursts. It was awesome!
Later that day at the Dojo, we were practicing basics and then Sensei watched people do their test forms. I practiced my first two forms and unfortunately tore open the blister that I had developed on Tuesday. Thankfully my brother had already cut it open from the side to drain the fliud, but I still wasn't supposed to open it all the way up. Oh well I guess.
Friday was a bit of a strange day as well, all the students were there, but we had to start testing all the special ed students. It's uaually done at the end of the year, but since we only have a few teachers testing and quite a few students we had to start now so we could finish, since they all have to be tested one at a time. So I had a sub and was in and out of class all day. I'm told that the students have been improving since the start of the year at these tests, I came iin halfway through so this is the first time I've done these tests. I started a few students on their tests and I almost got one finished, so hopefully next friday I'll have some students done. Hopefully next week will be more normal. Refer to the title of this blog.
Later that day at the Dojo, we were practicing basics and then Sensei watched people do their test forms. I practiced my first two forms and unfortunately tore open the blister that I had developed on Tuesday. Thankfully my brother had already cut it open from the side to drain the fliud, but I still wasn't supposed to open it all the way up. Oh well I guess.
Friday was a bit of a strange day as well, all the students were there, but we had to start testing all the special ed students. It's uaually done at the end of the year, but since we only have a few teachers testing and quite a few students we had to start now so we could finish, since they all have to be tested one at a time. So I had a sub and was in and out of class all day. I'm told that the students have been improving since the start of the year at these tests, I came iin halfway through so this is the first time I've done these tests. I started a few students on their tests and I almost got one finished, so hopefully next friday I'll have some students done. Hopefully next week will be more normal. Refer to the title of this blog.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Career Day
...was yesterday, but I was too tired to post about it, so here we go today.
It started out with a fifty minute homeroom to give the presenters time to prepare in the classrooms that they would be in. Unfortunately, there was no presenter assigned to my room. This meant that I had fifty minutes of students asking me why we were in homeroom for so long, I wondered that myself actually. When the day finally got going it got better, I was assigned to help out in the room where the police officer was, which rock. Mainly because our school resource officer was the presenter, and since he's "big and scary" all the kids were quietly listening to him. He was also a really good presenter, he told cool stories about his job, he should the kids his tazer and explained how it worked, and he reacted to the kid's questions rather than just having a set speech so I never heard the same story more than twice. We had five rotations of Career Day, and then surprize, another forty minutes of homeroom. The second session of it was not nearly as bad though, the students were writing thank you cards to their favorite presenters. We got out at about noon so I had a nice bit of relaxation time afterwards before I had to do anything productive again.
After that I went to the dojo, and practiced the first two forms untill I got blisters on my feet. But that was okay, it was kind of fun to work out like that, it was a little repetitive though, oh well.
Today was a normal day at school, the last one we're going to have this week, but more on that in another post. My academic achievement classes have been made much smaller this term with so many students now passing their classes, which is good and bad. Good becuase we now have a much more manageable class and can help students on a more one on one basis. But bad becuase the students who left might have their grades fall again, and I miss some of them. Math is still the same, although we did move some students into different groups based on progress.
Nothing left to say today but, refer to the title of this blog.
It started out with a fifty minute homeroom to give the presenters time to prepare in the classrooms that they would be in. Unfortunately, there was no presenter assigned to my room. This meant that I had fifty minutes of students asking me why we were in homeroom for so long, I wondered that myself actually. When the day finally got going it got better, I was assigned to help out in the room where the police officer was, which rock. Mainly because our school resource officer was the presenter, and since he's "big and scary" all the kids were quietly listening to him. He was also a really good presenter, he told cool stories about his job, he should the kids his tazer and explained how it worked, and he reacted to the kid's questions rather than just having a set speech so I never heard the same story more than twice. We had five rotations of Career Day, and then surprize, another forty minutes of homeroom. The second session of it was not nearly as bad though, the students were writing thank you cards to their favorite presenters. We got out at about noon so I had a nice bit of relaxation time afterwards before I had to do anything productive again.
After that I went to the dojo, and practiced the first two forms untill I got blisters on my feet. But that was okay, it was kind of fun to work out like that, it was a little repetitive though, oh well.
Today was a normal day at school, the last one we're going to have this week, but more on that in another post. My academic achievement classes have been made much smaller this term with so many students now passing their classes, which is good and bad. Good becuase we now have a much more manageable class and can help students on a more one on one basis. But bad becuase the students who left might have their grades fall again, and I miss some of them. Math is still the same, although we did move some students into different groups based on progress.
Nothing left to say today but, refer to the title of this blog.
Monday, March 24, 2008
My Students Rock
With today being the first day of the term I had my academic achievement students check their grades online. I told them that this weren't their official grades, but they were a good estimate, and really they only could have gone up from what was posted. The coolest part though, was that about 80% of my students were passing all of their classes which is a huge improvement from how they were doing at the middle of the term. A lot of them were really happy, one said that this was the first term that he had ever passed all of his classes, and another had gone from failing five classes to passing them. I was so proud of my students today, even those that were not passing all of their classes had still made big improvements.
So pretty short post today, tomorrow is Career Day and a half day so I'll have much better stories. But in my mind today was so cool. Refer to the title of this blog.
So pretty short post today, tomorrow is Career Day and a half day so I'll have much better stories. But in my mind today was so cool. Refer to the title of this blog.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Phones
So I got a new one today. And I'm on a new plan with a new provider (Tmobile) since I'm probably going to be moving out soon and I wanted to get used to paying more bills.
The most exciting part is that I got the coolest phone, it's just like someone else's new phone but it's black. It has the ability to play MP3s which is great because my iPod died quite a while ago and I've been missing music. So I guess that's pretty big news.
Saturdays are my most fun day of the week to be honest. I get to hang out with friends playing D and D, video games, and other fun things. Also it's really nice to have some break time from work, just so I don't burn out from a lack of fun. Not much else to report today, although I did wake up at noon, not that I'm lazy, it's just that I had to stay up untill three this morning so I could pick my brother up from the hospital. He volunteers there on fridays during the graveyard shift in the ER. Driving at that time can be either cool or horribly frustrating, at least in my case. Sometimes all the lights turn green for you so you never have to stop and you make excellent time. But other times my Red Light Curse kicks in and I have to wait at intersections for what seems like an eternity when no one else passes through it. My brother says he just passes through those lights, but if you know me you know that I feel uncomfortable breaking any rules.
Tomorrow is Easter, but it will be a very sad Easter for my family. Our rabbit, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., died a little earlier in the week for reasons unknown. The saddest part is that on that very day I metioned that we should buy something nice for him just as a joke. We buried him in our side yard. Ther was a touching wake for him.
On another subject, this monday is the first day of the forth term, but since it's right after Easter many of the teachers said they were going to take it off to spend time with their families. We will probably have a lot of subs, so it could turn out to be a very interesting first day. It all depends on what kind of subs we get. But, really, that's what makes my job so much fun. Refer to the title of this blog.
The most exciting part is that I got the coolest phone, it's just like someone else's new phone but it's black. It has the ability to play MP3s which is great because my iPod died quite a while ago and I've been missing music. So I guess that's pretty big news.
Saturdays are my most fun day of the week to be honest. I get to hang out with friends playing D and D, video games, and other fun things. Also it's really nice to have some break time from work, just so I don't burn out from a lack of fun. Not much else to report today, although I did wake up at noon, not that I'm lazy, it's just that I had to stay up untill three this morning so I could pick my brother up from the hospital. He volunteers there on fridays during the graveyard shift in the ER. Driving at that time can be either cool or horribly frustrating, at least in my case. Sometimes all the lights turn green for you so you never have to stop and you make excellent time. But other times my Red Light Curse kicks in and I have to wait at intersections for what seems like an eternity when no one else passes through it. My brother says he just passes through those lights, but if you know me you know that I feel uncomfortable breaking any rules.
Tomorrow is Easter, but it will be a very sad Easter for my family. Our rabbit, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., died a little earlier in the week for reasons unknown. The saddest part is that on that very day I metioned that we should buy something nice for him just as a joke. We buried him in our side yard. Ther was a touching wake for him.
On another subject, this monday is the first day of the forth term, but since it's right after Easter many of the teachers said they were going to take it off to spend time with their families. We will probably have a lot of subs, so it could turn out to be a very interesting first day. It all depends on what kind of subs we get. But, really, that's what makes my job so much fun. Refer to the title of this blog.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Finally
So I guess it's a little weird to be starting my very first post with the word finally, unless this is sometime in the future when I have tons of posts and for some reason you're reading them backwards chronologically.
Anyways, I decided to start a blog so late in the game mainly because I'm not a very internet literate person, having had it for less then a year currently. Also becuase I lead a very dull life, don't get me wrong it is thrilling to me but I'm not sure everyone would be so enthusiastic about it. So here we go.
I never really read young adult books, aside from Harry Potter but I'm not sure if that falls into the "young adult" genre anymore (maybe it did at one time, but not now), I went straight from The Bailey School Kids to The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But ever since I started teaching middle school I've been reading them during homeroom since there are never any other books around, and I always forget to bring one. I guess all the movies out now that are based on those books are another contributing factor. My main reason for bringing this up is because today was the last day of the term and we had a free day in all of my math classes, so we decided to watch a movie. Now if you talked to me while I was a sub you know that I hated watching movies, the first period would be okay, the second was boring, and the last period was brain-melting. Of course this was because of the choice of movie (The Little Rascals is NOT funny!!!) but since I'm one of the teachers I have a little bit of say in this matter. After having it cleared with the lead coordinator we got to watch A Series of Unfortunate Events, and let me tell you I laughed even on the fifth time of the first 45 minutes of that movie. So basically, I had a great day today. Refer to the title of this blog.
P.S. Violet is Hot!
Anyways, I decided to start a blog so late in the game mainly because I'm not a very internet literate person, having had it for less then a year currently. Also becuase I lead a very dull life, don't get me wrong it is thrilling to me but I'm not sure everyone would be so enthusiastic about it. So here we go.
I never really read young adult books, aside from Harry Potter but I'm not sure if that falls into the "young adult" genre anymore (maybe it did at one time, but not now), I went straight from The Bailey School Kids to The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But ever since I started teaching middle school I've been reading them during homeroom since there are never any other books around, and I always forget to bring one. I guess all the movies out now that are based on those books are another contributing factor. My main reason for bringing this up is because today was the last day of the term and we had a free day in all of my math classes, so we decided to watch a movie. Now if you talked to me while I was a sub you know that I hated watching movies, the first period would be okay, the second was boring, and the last period was brain-melting. Of course this was because of the choice of movie (The Little Rascals is NOT funny!!!) but since I'm one of the teachers I have a little bit of say in this matter. After having it cleared with the lead coordinator we got to watch A Series of Unfortunate Events, and let me tell you I laughed even on the fifth time of the first 45 minutes of that movie. So basically, I had a great day today. Refer to the title of this blog.
P.S. Violet is Hot!
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