30 Something

Last weekend I went out with some friends and we had a pretty good time, but my sleep schedule was jacked up. I slept in late on Sunday which caused me to be up all night, so I was super tired on Monday. Luckily on Monday it was picture day so we didn't spend much time in class. My schedule was off all week so I decided that since the chapter that we are now discussing is nutrition, i'd show Supersize Me and the students loved it. We had a really good discussion about it in my classes today. We didn't get a chance to discuss in classes yesterday because I was scheduled for a training that I didn't know anything about until the day before. So I had my first sub. He was really cute and really good with the students. I'm gonna request him when I need subs again. Midterms go out on Monday and over half my students are failing with a "D" or an "F". Most of it is due to the lack of homework. I think I've had less than a third of my students who complete homework and turned it in on time. Actually it was way less than a third (not good at math) because a third would be at least 10 from each class and I had more like 5 or six from each class turn in homework. They just won't do it. I did however have some students turn in work at the last minute today because they knew that they would be getting a midterm in the mail on next week. I told them that I'd grade it. For most of them I didn't even take off points for being late because I knew that it would only matter a little bit. Mostly it boosted them to a "D" or a low "C". so they needed all the help that they could get. I do have a fun week planned. We are talking about nutrition and I have some good visual aids to use when talking about fast foods and how much fat is in a lot of the stuff that they eat. I'm supposed to go out of town on tomorrow and i'm so sorry taht I told tammy that I would go because I've got so much grading and planning to do that it's a shame. I won't even have time to sleep this weekend, let alone drive somewhere for 3 hours. I told her that she'd have to drive becaus of the grading that I had to do. She agreed to it. I'm supposed to spend a couple of hours with Mister tonight. I can't wait. I told him that I'd help him with the production of The Wiz, but I did warn him taht my time is really really limited. I can't wait to see what he needs me to do. I think it would be fun to work on a play.

I was watching an abc news special called, "Stupid in American."and the premise was that american students are educationally behind students in other countries. John Stossel was giving permission to video several classes and talk to students about school and many were surpised that other countries were smarter. The scene from the schools looked as if there were teachers who weren't doing their job, allowing students to sleep in class and play games that aren't associated with their lesson, etc. It was a really sad picture to see. Of course my goal as a teacher is to be excellent, but because I watched the show I desperately want to become what I've always wanted to become--an inspiration to young people. However, it's not as easy as it seems. Mr. Stossel put a lot of the blame on schools and teachers and made a big effort to establish that the school system is broken, which I agree with, but there are other factors that go into a child's education. One key factor is parents. I have numerous student's whose parents i'm sure are at their wits end and don't have time to "deal" with their children at school. The dropout rate in my city is pretty high and the graduation rates are significantly below the state standards so I'm pretty sure that some of the parents don't care because some of them were the dropouts. Some of them have a hard time reading themselves, so to expect that their children come home and do work is not something that is not done. Of course there are some parents who are quite involved and I can tell that because of the quality of work that is returned, but to just say the system is broken is going overboard. Yes it's broken, but there are other pieces to the puzzle that need to be address also.

After last week I was seriously thinking that in order to be a teacher i would have to be magician, a ventriloquist, singer, dancer, or anything that entertains people in order to get across to the students. They just didn't seem to care one iota about anything that i was saying. However, right before i left school on friday i came across a book left from the previous teacher that was stuck in one of the drawers. It was a book of activities that are related to health topics. Many of the activities were only about 15 -30 minutes long, but I threw caution to the wind and decided that I was going to take a camping approach to class. I was going to choose some activities that we could do that is related to the topic at hand which happens to be communication. As I got to school this morning I was seriously praying that this would go over well with the students. I was in the copy room with another new teacher and she asked me how it was going. I spilled my guts and told her that my students were bored to death, but I was trying something new. She told me that she was having the same problem. She said the material that she has is boring and the students could care less so she has the students read during class. The problem with allowing my students to read is that eventually they'll get bored and start to act out. So reading can only go so far. Well I did the activities and with the exception of 2nd hour the day was perfect. The students were engaged and really wanted to participate in the the activities. My only problem now is how do I keep this momentum up. I'm sure I would be limited in the activities that I could do and also they students need to know what's in the book for the test. I do know for sure that I'm going to try to find even more activities for the students. I hate teaching logs.