assigned seat

first times at newschool high

2005-08-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

well that was interesting.

homeroom went decently well. i have freshmen so they don't really know if i screwed up anyway. i have never dealt with the scheduling nightmare of a large high school. (i really didn't know how seemingly capricious class schedules can be.) they are told that they can't change their schedule unless they are a senior and need a class to graduate, passed a class they thought would fail, and something similarly restrictive. despite these limitations, the incredible line i saw when i went to the counseling area makes me think changes are made anyway. announcements over the intercom were so constant during homeroom it almost seemed stream of consciousnes.

with about 30 minutes left, homeroom ended and first period began. (this means i need to run out of that class and try to beat my first period students to the classroom; homeroom is not in the room where i have first period.)

the other math teachers were talking about how the first day is just taken up by going over procedures and the syllabus. they must be more loquacious than i am for i was taking my time and finished right at the end of the period - or when it was supposed to end. yet another intercom announcement then told us we had 10 more minutes. since i was given the curriculum 10 minutes before the start of homeroom, i did not have much to fall back on. (i started in on terminating/nonterminating decimals just to fill some time - really. shockingly only half the class seemed bored.)

that reminds me - there seems to be something about my teaching style that is very effective for about a third of the students. i'm not talking about like those who normally do well. about half of that third is usually students who are usually rather poor students and unengaged. the other half is the standard "excellers." i need to figure out how to better reach the middle half.

i was not as prepared as i intended for third/fourth blocks since a fellow teacher never gave me his outline as he said. we are teaching the same class - and since we've been told to teach it other than how the state says - i've been trying to coordinate to teach the same topics at a similar pace. despite this, we still covered the basics of points, lines, planes, rays, angles, and naming them after the syllabus was reviewed. one student (who obviously was no nerd as was suggested by buddy tim) came up to me on his way home after fourth block. he told me he was not going to be in the class much longer since he'd already passed it, but that i shouldn't be so nervous. he then gave me some tips on cleaning the overhead. i didn't feel nervous (though the lack of thorough preparedness did concern me). i did like that he felt comfortable talking to me. (since no one else was around, it was clear he wasn't trying to get attention or goof off.)

the copiers are new...but suck. they haven't put any staples into them (ever), and they don't do 2 single sides -> 1 double side. i still don't have keys. this is a pain since i have to find the third period teacher so he can lock the door during lunch and unlock it afterwards. after a week of requests/pleas, i was finally able to login to the computers during second block. i ate lunch in the math office. that's kinda cool. it's much different than being THE math teacher.

during my planning period (as i was trying to get help to unjam the copier), i saw one of my geometry students from last year. i'd repeatedly told them to go back to their base school and take care of what they needed to get done to graduate. he was quite pleased to see me and greetedly me warmly. i looked at his schedule and after a brief conversation told him to get to class. i mentioned to another teacher in the math office that i'd seen yet another former student in the hall. she said "oh? student's name?" i said yes. she said that his teacher was looking for him as he was already skipping class. i guess he only decided to follow half of my admonition.

attendance is a pain, and the tardy policy is draconian and tedious. more about that later. overall a decent start.

a real live teacher

2005-08-24T23:22:00.000-04:00

it seems i'll be awakening quite early for the next year - leaving about a half hour earlier than i did at the previous school. there has been plenty of confusion/changes concerning the content/structure for the classes i'm teaching so preparations aren't as i'd like.

i'm also not sure how this whole "teacher without a room" thing is going to work. just things like the lack of a bookshelf keep popping up and being annoyances.

i will have a class first period for the first time ever. i've been told that teaching math in the morning is best, so this could be good. i also have a homeroom (ironic since i don't have a room 'tall). i'll actually be going to a classroom of a teacher who doesn't have a homeroom (for like the first time in 27 years).

it begins.

ring, ring, ring...

2005-08-19T00:23:00.000-04:00

that phone is bananas!

anyway, i called 4 times over a 2 hour period today and asst. superintendent guy wasn't in. they kept "expecting him any minute." today was the last day to register for classes at regional colleges at a reduced rate through a program. i figured there's no reason to go back to teaching if i wasn't going to be registered for the classes i need to continue teaching. i was quite adamant that i needed someone to tell me today what was going on. the secretary started saying she needed to schedule a meeting for tomorrow morning with another guy. i finally got him on the phone. he said he had the recommendation in his hand. (i wonder how long.) he said to go ahead and register for classes. to do so, i'm to show proof that i am working for a school system. he gives me his work number and said for that number to be called if there is a problem. i told him that i wouldn't even get to the registration site until after 5. he did not volunteer another number. (at 4:45 and 50 miles still to go, i called him and asked if there was a number where he could be reached if any issue arose. he said there was not.)

so after 200+ miles of driving, i'm scheduled for two classes, and i have a meeting downtown at 8:30 where i'm assuming i'll be official. (i also called my old buddy - the science teacher - on the way to see how things are going at the old school. that's another whole post.)

i may actually get "work" done tomorrow.

central office

2005-08-17T08:54:00.000-04:00

monday i just showed up down at the assistant superintendent's office since he never returned any of my 5+ phone calls. he seemed to not have any clue what the messages said. i asked if the position was still available at a high school. (he'd previously told me that he didn't think they needed anyone.) he said it was. i asked what i needed to do. he asked if i had decided if i wanted to teach this year. (three of the messages were me asking if that job was available and that i was interested.) he then called the principal of the school and set up a meeting for me later that afternoon.

this school is out in the middle of nowhere. for some reason i went the way my housemate mentioned instead of the way i've gone the few times i'd made it out there. as i'm driving i'm on the edge of a very strong thunderstorm with torrential downpours. i realize i'm going to be late if i don't find it soon. i eventually stop and ask a newspaper deliverywoman. apparently i'd missed a turn. this means i head back into the storm.

i arrive 5 minutes early, but it's pouring. i park and hurry to the nearby door. it's locked. i then jog until i find another entrance. i'm quite wet. i enter and the secretary just laughs at me. she says that the principal is out in his truck because of the rain. she gives me a pile of paper towels and points me to a bathroom.

she eventually walks out to his truck with two umbrellas. i soon meet with him and an assistant principal. i don't feel like i wowed them - but i believe i came off as competent. she seemed much less interested. at the end, he said he'd call the assitant superintendent and tell him he'd recommend me.

this next morning, i keep calling downtown to find out if i'm to go to work. around 8 i get an answer, but the school hasn't called and the assistant superitendent isn't there and likely won't come into the office since it's the day of the big welcome address to all staff members. (schools come in shifts to the high school with the largest auditorium.) i later call back and leave a message for him to call me. i never made it to work.

today i just showed up at his office at 8:30. he wasn't there. his secretary said that the school hadn't called. she talked to someone and that person said that she'd left a message with the school to find out what their decision was. she told me not to go to work until things were settled. this is rather annoying. i didn't miss a day in two years, but now i'm missing two in a row.

to task

2005-08-15T22:37:00.000-04:00

after that rather blistering comment (now gone - blame haloscan), i lost what little energy i had for posting.

i did however have the energy to keep teaching. i finished the year. i think it was more stressful than the first year - which i didn't think was possible. i had quite a few ideas of what to do next - none of which i acted upon.

it seems that i will actually be teaching next year at a regular high school. i will know for sure in the morning. if it is true, i will be teaching algebra 1a and tech math 1 (two sections.) i also will need to sign up thursday for two college classes to meet required coursework. i will not have my own classroom. i will have a class first period for the first time. i was told i will have a duty-free lunch. change can be good.

more details as i know what i'm getting into - and i feel like typing.

edit: ugh. it seems whatever happened to prince roy's blog earlier, affected mine. (i just hadn't posted during that time.) i'll look into it later to see what needs to be fixed.

good advice

2004-10-28T17:39:00.000-04:00

tomorrow is the end of the grading period. while there is officially a "workday" on tuesday, it will be taken up (like the last one) entirely for staff development. so after doing some after school tutoring until 5, i'm sitting here grading classwork/notebooks. like last time, i've found some interesting materials which seem to have put in the wrong notebook. while i'm no keno, i'll post some "finds" as i go.

Theirs a distruction in our youth today its teenage smoking. If only teh teenages knew what shat teenage smoking could lead to, Well they will find out today because I am going to tell them. It can lead to Health Problems, Adddiction and what a lot of grown people suffer from now stress.

First of all you will have lots of Health Problems, like not being able to run for a longtime, Breathing issues and also what a lots of people are catching everday lung Cancer. Thats very serious people don't understand that that is a life threatning disease.

Second of all

monday

2004-10-25T23:32:00.000-04:00

second block was atrocious again. seems everyone decided to show up (as well as the girl who stated she wasn't coming back after her first day friday). the brother/sister team was way, way too crazy. when they go off, there's little chance of controlling the class. we're talking like yelling, walking around, interrupting anything i say, telling me to shut up multiple times, etc. i spoke to them (and seemingly the rest of the class) individually. i had to send out brother. i had warned him way too many times, yet when i wrote up the class detention referral, he became very upset and confrontative. he refused to leave, and it was impossible to continue. mr. acrossthehall wasn't able to get him to leave either.

since we don't have any way to contact the office, i used my cell phone to call for the assistant principal. (he wasn't in his office next door.) he eventually came and was able to remove him. however, sister then held this against me and yelled at me and kept interrupting the class. it wasn't like they were the only ones. somehow i did teach finding the range given a specific range for functions. several students did like 1 or 2 problems in an hour. just pathetic. i tried to call brother/sister's mom, but i called, the line made some rather quick repeating noise like it was off the hook. in the middle of this class, i all of a sudden started thinking about how my bank account was looking pretty good and how nice it would be to have a day off...or a month off. this is probably not the best outlook. (i did like how the beginning of "if" popped into my head.) i think it was just that feeling (seemingly endless but not actually rather momentary) of having no idea what might work.

i hate it when the principal isn't there. i think there's some kind of messaging system so that everyone knows by the end of first period.

geometry student seemed decent though i still felt bad having him pretty much just read and do worksheets and ask me if he had a question. teaching three subjects at once with unmotivated students doesn't work well. luckily my one student in algebra 1a took his daily pre-lunch nap. that at least left me with just two classes. actually i do have a couple of motivated students in that class. one student returned today from some time in jail and works quite consistently; another (my "favorite student) has court tomorrow but he's been doing quite a bit of makeup work, and geometry is also in there. remarkably, third block may become my most productive block.

thinking back, there was actually quite a bit of work done fourth block as well. it's amazing how long one class can seem and how it can ruin a day.

yey - one more

2004-10-24T18:47:00.000-04:00

i found out friday that i'll have another student monday. (i actually had a new student friday but that's normal.) the difference with the student on friday is that i will be teaching him geometry. i have not taught geometry before, and i will be teaching him geometry while i'm teaching algebra 1b (and algebra 1a to one student). the base school has agreed to send (by tuesday or wednesday) some resource materials that should help me set up a curriculum which incorporates a decent amount of independent work.

i am rather disappointed as i don't believe this is ideal. (also because i've wanted to teach geometry - but not like this.) i now have two courses with state given final exams in the same period. (this period is also the one with "my favorite student" who has been given "one last chance" again.

i guess i should get to work coming up with a plan...

novel

2004-10-23T10:47:00.000-04:00

having read about the chair's efforts to keep parents informed, i tried again to do the same. the school system just implemented email for teachers earlier this fall. (i was both relieved and still pissed that this had not been done previously.)

on the last progress reports i included a comment about welcoming contact and asking for parents to put their email address on the provided line as well as the standard signature. i mentioned that the email address would be used to send out periodic updates about class related information. it seemed like a reasonable attempt. 2 foreseen problems arose. first, only 3 students returned their progress reports. second, they did not have email addresses. one student said his father was going to get one.

in response to the inability to gather email addresses, i decided to send a message to the secretary asking that email address be added to the contact information that parents/guardians must complete as part of the enrollment. after sending it, i wondered if i would have ruffled some feathers. (maybe on monday i'll post the message for perusal.) i have sent seemingly innocuous messages before only to have people get upset and defensive. i was quite pleased, relieved when opening the response i read: "GREAT IDEA!!!"

as a i was told, this is not a novel idea.

other attempts at technological advances: the county keeps saying that class webpages will be available "soon." however, the last time i hear what soon meant, it was next semester at the earliest. i decided to see how well blogspot would serve for the interim. in order to keep the different classes separate, i signed up for multiple blogs and linked extensively and it appears rather seemless i believe. it's doable but quite time consuming so far. the students have not shown much interest, and i highly doubt anyone has visited the site.

i have shown the ec department since i have so many of their students. this way, they can keep up with what i'm doing. (they have some students which do not attend my class but are enrolled in the same course - the level of required learning / work is a different issue.) they seemed to like it. i also showed the secretary. it may help a substitute teacher if i ever take a day off.

swirl

2004-10-13T08:13:00.000-04:00

i am not sure if this is just a common work situation (and it was much worse during a previous nonteaching life i dated a coworker *shudder*), but sexual comments directed toward me are the norm for 3 separate teachers. i'm also wondering if it's seen as okay since i'm the young white guy.

it doesn't really bother me, but at times it's rather embarassing. one staff member was especially forward last year; valentine's day was somewhat awkward. i'm fine with playing along, but i am always worried that somehow i'll say something that they'll find inappropriate and then i'll be getting in trouble for all this.

anyway, this is all to say that i recently went to a barber and had a much closer cut. (yes this is somewhat a response to being referred to as "shaggy" by several students.) the response from teachers was mixed, but one seemed to find it a positive change. "mmmm...mr. archimedes got himself a fresh cut. we're gonna have to go out. do you swirl?"

now i was not sure how to respond to that. for one i was unsure exactly as to its meaning. it sounded sexual, but for all i knew it could just be referring to ice cream. if it was as i suspected, what's the correct answer? yes - seems to i'm ready to start of the marvin gaye. if i say no - then does that make me seem racist? i felt the best response was to laugh and play dumb like i had no clue what she was talking about.

it seems walmart has provided an answer. while quickly perusing the $5.50 dvds yesterday i came across this film. i nearly bought it.

so the one variable says to the other variable if we don't soon get coordinated, i'm gonna get the x!

2004-09-20T08:41:00.000-04:00

Psychology Professor finds link between storytelling & mathematical ability

Math and storytelling may seem like very different abilities, but a new study by University of Waterloo, Psychology professor, Daniela O'Neill suggests that pre-school children's early storytelling abilities are predictive of their mathematical ability two years later. The study has just been published in the June 2004 issue of the journal First Language.

In the study, three-and four-year-old children were shown a book that contained only pictures and were asked to tell the story to a puppet. None of the children had seen the book before the study. The children were not prompted in any way and were free to say as much or as little about each page as they wished.

"Children were told the puppet had never heard the story before, and so this made it a fun thing for children to do. They really enjoyed telling the story to the puppet," explained O'Neill, a professor of developmental psychology.

"Having children tell the story on their own, without any adult prompting, also allowed us to better see what they were able to accomplish on their own and to get a more sensitive measure of their storytelling ability," she said.

O'Neill looked at several aspects of children's storytelling ability. Some aspects captured grammatical complexity, such as children's use of relative clauses or the length of their sentences. Other aspects involved more perspective-taking on the part of the child.

"In the story, a child brings his pet frog to a restaurant and lots of funny things happen as the frog begins to jump around and cause all sorts of mayhem," O'Neill said.

"This made it possible to see how well children were able to talk about the feelings or thoughts of the characters in the story and how well children were able to talk about the different actions of the various characters and switch clearly from talking about one character to another," she said.

Two years later, the children were brought back to the laboratory and were given a number of tests of academic achievement that included a test of mathematical achievement. What O'Neill found was that those children who scored highly on the mathematics test had also scored highly on certain measures of their storytelling ability two years earlier.

"It was only certain aspects of storytelling that were related to later mathematical ability. Most strongly predictive of children's mathematical performance was their ability to relate all the different events in the story, to shift clearly from the actions of one character to another, and to adopt the perspective of different characters and talk about what they were feeling or thinking," explained O'Neill.

This study suggests that building strong storytelling skills early in the pre-school years may be helpful in preparing children for learning mathematics when they enter school.

"Almost all children experience the world of storytelling before they begin their journey into the world of mathematical thinking, and there's an intriguing possibility that providing children with experience with storytelling may later enhance their ability to tackle problems in the mathematical arena," said O'Neill.

"It is also a nice finding, I think, because storytelling is something every parent can easily do and foster with their children, without the need to buy any fancy toys or materials," said O'Neill.

Given these findings, O'Neill is continuing in further studies, also funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, to explore more precisely what aspects of storytelling are linked to aspects of mathematical ability.

"There is a lot more to know about how these two domains of thinking are related. Both storytelling and mathematics involve many different abilities and we are trying to determine what the overlapping abilities are that might explain why being better at certain types of storytelling skills might help when tackling certain kinds of mathematical problems," O'Neill said.

By: Jim Fox

http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts/Profiles/o'neill.html

i found it interesting, but the professor seems to imply that he believes there might be a causal relationship. i tend to believe they both demonstrate a capacity for higher level thinking. i can see however if his efforts to get parents to "foster" storytelling are intended to stimulate higher level thinking that there could be some benefits in other areas - including mathematics.

new form

2004-09-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

i was just given a form i'd never seen before. it's entitled "ADHD RATING SCALE IV - SCHOOL EDITION." I am to return it completed concerning a student in about an hour. There are 18 different statements concerning behavior and a scale of 0, 1, 2, and 3. 0 == "never or rarely" 1 == "sometimes" 2 == "often" 3 == "very often"

Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork.
Fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
Has difficulty sustaining attentino in tasks or play activities.
Leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected.
Does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
Runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate
Does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish work.
Has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly.
Has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.
Is "on the go" or acts as if "driven by a motor."
Avoids tasks (e.g. schoolwork, homework) that require sustained mental effort.
Talks excessively.
Loses things necessary for tasks or activities.
Blurts out answers before questions have been completed.
Is easily distracted.
Has difficulty awaiting turn.
Is forgetful in daily activities.
Interrupts or intrudes on others

frustrated

2004-09-13T15:43:00.000-04:00

in his notebook - along with algebra 1 worksheets, notes, returned tests, quizzes, etc. - i found a writing by my most memorable student.

Frustrated ...
To all the heartbreakin' ladies

I'm frustrated because my baby left me alone
I'm frustrated because I'm on my own
I'm frustrated because my girl is miles away
I'm frustrated because I'm forced to sell everyday
I'm frustrated because I want you to love me
I'm frustrated because my love is blind, but I can see
I'm frustrated because I Love You so much
I'm frustrated because God is right here & can't be touched
I'm frustrated because you we (are?) aganist my heart
I'm frustrated because we got tour apart
I'm frustrated because I don't know what to do
I'm frustrated baby because I want to be with you
I'm frustrated because I do all I can
I'm frustrated because I want to be ya man

renaissance man

2004-09-10T08:42:00.000-04:00

in our boxes today, the staff received a poem from our head custodial worker. recreated as well as i could.

In Remembrance of September 11, 2001
The Day America Prayed
The sun rose upon the New York Bay
It seemed to be an ordinary day
The smoke filled fog rose out of sight
The sea gulls howled with all of their might
But peace was taken from this humble saga
A wicked plot by Mohammed Atta
Though seemingly invincible we found we were not
An enemy had stabbed America in its heart
Wounded and bleeding from teh stab of Mohammed
America was knocked unto its knees
What a lofty position we acquired that day
From our knees we set the battle in array
Against the solemn laws of that day
Schools gathered around flags all across our nation and began to pray
There was not a note of resopnse from the A.C.L.U. (American Civil Liberties Union)
Who knows? Maybe they prayed too.
Bush, Clinton, Cheney, Gore and past president alike
Locked hands together adn prayed with all their might
No congress had convened, no vote had been cast, no flicking of a card
But they all gathered together on one accord
Making their prayers and supplications unto God
The forces of our prayers moved us across teh bar
From the annals of mediocrity far above par
What a lofty position we acquired that day
The day America began to pray
Firstname Middlename Lastname

still going

2004-09-08T23:26:00.000-04:00

i'm still teaching. there's more learning on than last year. still way too much nonsense. ad homebound sbp gradebook/lesson plans cops/dog/handcuffs/boxcutter/lunchroom chicken quesadillas i promise i'll make sense of this. i was told i had to "blog that sh"

school's back...from the summer

2004-08-04T16:24:00.000-04:00

students are back. this means sitting at my desk for long stretches of motionless stupor are no longer acceptable. (i'd need to move to one of the student desks for that.)

the long ago math textbook adoption has blessed the county with all new math books and ancillary materials. maybe i should be more specific. all schools but ours have new books. my increasingly often (and less courteous) phone calls to central office led to an interruption of one class by the head of high school instruction. too bad she had to pick the class with two guys who seem to think the seats are on fire. one of them interrupted our conversation - he'd walked over and sat on the desk next to the door - "are you the new counselor?"

she said that algebra 1 books are on back order but that i "should have books by the end of this week or the beginning of next." i first thought "books" referred to algebra 1 books; i'm now questioning this since i have yet to receive any of the other books. why wouldn't i get them now if the algebra 1 book was the only one on backorder?

i was reminded of einstein's explanation of relativity today.

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute-and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.

when did 90 minutes become so freakin' long? they didn't even seem so long when i tossed and turned for even longer last night. (ok. i did start reading about the disillusionment of politics in america so that could have been a mitigating factor.)

there's a classroom performance system in our school from some test grant. i think i'm going to monopolize it. (i'm the checkout person) until other teachers see how it can be pretty badass.

this post is boring, but it's something. the overriding feeling is the same as that in the drivel/email i shot off early this morn to a friend.

and so another year begins
with trials and tears and sins
ten more months unless i'm fired
my one thought? "damn i'm tired"

surprise surprise surprise

2004-08-04T16:21:00.000-04:00

yes it's been a while. i may go back and convert this post into some stories from the end of the year. (ignore the following: bet, field day, review, materials)

days like this

2004-04-13T23:21:00.000-04:00

i need to really start posting about good days; i don't want to only remember days like this. it started off poorly as i was late since i woke up quite sick. things didn't get better.

attendance was not good the first day back from spring break (yesterday), but i think everyone showed up today. of course they weren't there to learn, but i think they just got bored at home (or someone got tired of them being at home).

my first class is full of students who like to talk but not math. (this is the class roster that made the secretary respond "we really do like you" since it would make one think otherwise.) the loudest, most belligerent is actually one of my favorite "students." considering she hasn't done any work in any of her classes, she's no real student - but she's funny. i like funny. she's extremely rude and crude and a very bad influence, but it'd be fun to have her as a classmate. she was in fine form today.

there are two students who will attempt to pay attention or do any classwork. one i sent to the office due to him obviously deliberately interrupting me. the other one must have still been on break. since tomorrow is the end of the six weeks, i was trying to get many of them to makeup a test. the test was given the friday before spring break and many skipped that friday and yesterday. three obliged by putting a name on a test. one actually attempted a problem.

i knew i was not responding well when i realized i was standing in the front of the classroom considering other jobs/careers. the rest of the class pretty much involved me attempting to begin again every 10 minutes or so. the only student who did anything was the student who was sent to the office.

some learning took place in the next class, but it must have been a gift. the one student who was responding at all with reasonable (and nearly all correct) answers is a student who informed me monday that he was not going to do any work until thursday. (i found out later, he's told all his teachers this.) he figures he'll fail the six weeks so no reason to do anything until the next grading period begins. he must be committed to this idea as he correctly answered the first half of a worksheet but refused to write down anything on the page.

i have a new student in fourth block. i am now teaching an eighth prealgebra student along with my tech math class. i really don't know what to teach the kid. i requested some info as to what has been taught and what his class is doing. the outline i received makes my syllabus look like a thesis. he's a good kid and works pretty hard. today he asked "why are you teaching me?" i just responded - "i have the same question."

remediation started today. that was some needed sleep. i wonder if i get paid extra for these hours. if so, i need to start bringing a pillow.

break me off a piece

2004-04-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

last week was spring break. i got the heck out of dodge - spent the week with friends in nyc. (btw, you guys rock - thanks again) i might post a couple of pics. it was very nice to be with intelligent, interesting creative people my own age. i seem to have lost some of my debating edge. i do need to get back in the habit. (supporting evidence of an opposing view is much different when dealing with students.) hopefully brandon and mark's colorful metaphors and adjectives stayed behind.

the week before spring break was as bad as you would imagine. tuesday felt like a friday...as did wednesday and thursday. as to friday, let's not talk about it. i worked my ass off (guess i still have a few left) thursday. i found out how long i can stay until i become delirious; aparently it's 9pm.

i made copies of all the work that students have yet to turn in (despite opportunities and reminders daily), printed up to date progress reports, and wrote a letter to the parents. for those who are facing state tests, i also created a calendar of remediation dates. i fully intended to call the parents to let them know that the work was coming, but i did not. i crashed at a friend's friday and my flight was sat at 7am. in the letter i gave my home number (like i did in the syllabus) and told parents to call if they had any questions. when i returned, there were no calls to return.

i'm considering persuing a one year masters in teaching math program for this fall. if i did that, i'd like to teach in nyc the next year. we'll see.

i feel like i'm gonna be sick.

2004-03-26T00:17:00.000-05:00

yes i know i've not been regularly posting, but i knew i'd regret posting about an incident today.

during second block i had a somewhat small class (i like to think "concentrated"). about halfway through, there was a fire drill. (i assume it was a drill.) a couple student gave seemingly halfhearted attempt at leaving campus. upon the eventual return to the classroom, i attempted to return to the lesson. one student kept asking to go to the bathroom. i eventually relented and said i'd give him a pass when i finished covering the material.

it was not going well at all. the "concentrated" class was not concentrating on math. instead they kept talking about getting high and drunk the previous night while playing spades. (i was rather surprised by the choice of card game. i'm trying to think of ways to use the interest in the classroom. probability is obvious, but not a high priority right now. any ideas for an algebra 1a tie in are appreciated.) i eventually did the poor teacher bailout, and just gave everyone a worksheet. i let the student go to the bathroom at this point.

several minutes later another student started complaining. he complained of being sick. i had noticed him putting his face down on the desk behind him (i didn't see how that could be comfortable.) he didn't seem quite his normal self (more angry less mischief.) despite the other student not having returned, when he started to spit into the garbage, i decided i'd write him a pass to the bathroom.

soon another male student started wretching and complaining. he was coughing/spitting up something into the trash. (the sounds were quite disgusting.) there was one student who found the whole insanity quite funny. as the student was puking in the trashcan, i watched her lie on the floor shaking with laughter. since the students he would be showing off for were already gone, it really didn't seem like he was trying to fake it. he actually didn't even ask for a pass. he just was filling up the trash can. after he stopped for a bit, he started to bring me the trash can. i told him to tie up the liner please. he then asked to go get something to wipe his mouth. i directed him to a different bathroom than the other two gentlemen. he looked extremely pale. he took the trashbag with him. at this point i'm wondering what they might have ingested - possibly during the fire drill.

when he left, the other student started laughing out loud. (she'd been trying not to laugh out loud while he was puking.) at this point, a student not in the class was in the hall and told me that the second student who'd left was really sick in the bathroom. the counselor happened to be in the hallway, and i asked her to watch the class while i checked on him. i walked in and the first two students were there. the sick one was standing on a toilet rim - spitting into it. he continued to spit up stuff after i'd sent the first student back to class. i asked him if he'd taken anything; he denied this. there isn't much time left in the period, but we get back to class and they're complaining about everything from anthrax to pollen to me poisoning them. i admit i wasn't feeling great at this point either.

when the bell rang, i asked a teacher to watch my next class for a couple of minutes as i informed the administration of the incident. (i felt someone needed the info in case one of them got really sick.) i checked back after the end of the day. apparently the principal required them to take drug tests and the results are due back today and tomorrow. she also had conferences with at least two of the students and a parent. one of the parents found the incident problematic. i guess we'll see if he responds to her instruction.

i just found the whole incident ironic considering yesterday i'd had a conversation with my brother/mother about the time in fourth grade when a student had projectile vomit as she tried to run to the bathroom. she'd soaked my bookbag (and my favorite grey nike sweatshirt that my uncle had given me). guess how the school dealt with this...they'd just put my backback in a clear bag and tied it. since it was like 90 degrees and i had a long busride, the bag started filling up with gases. the smell was horrible.

i remember distinctly saying "at least no one has thrown up in my classroom."

sick and fired?

2004-03-03T19:50:00.000-05:00

i'm posting while proctoring a makeup writing test. this is such a waste of time. there are two students who didn't take the original test. only one is here. two full time staff are spending 90 mins sitting here for one student. not only that, the counselor had given another group this kid's test and we had to wait while she went back and switched them.

i intended to post about a few recent occurrences. on monday, i arrived (my customary 5-10 mins late) and went to sign in. (i assumed this was normal; if your school does something else leave a comment.) over the sign in sheet was a paper announcing we have a meeting that afternoon @ 3. this intrigued me since i cannot remember a meeting on a monday afternoon. our teachers' meetings always are on wednesday. i was relieved it wasn't like the sheet last monday "see me immediately." nothing like making it obvious to your boss that you were late.

it was a standard monday. i am still sick (more about that later). around 2:53 i decide to head to the "media center." usually i roll up to teachers' meetings a minute or two and end up waiting at least another 5 for everyone to arrive. as i enter the library, i know something is definitely different. i'm early, yet the room is packed. the most surprising thing is i see people i don't recognize. (i still don't know who they were.)

i sit in the very back on a couch and hide behind a larger woman. (most of our female staff members are "larger women" but i digress.) i look around and make some wisecrack about this is the meeting where we're all going to be fired. the principal starts to recap the story of the incident which resulted in the death of the student from her point of view and from the information provided to her by a policeman who's updated her frequently.

i won't go into all the details, but basically a group of about 6 15 year olds were driving in a borrowed car. i didn't know that many of the 6 were students of mine (one is a top student). they yelled out at another group who was outside. they then circled around and returned to the area - each time doing something a little more antagonizing. this led to the other group breaking up concrete into chunks which then were hurled at the car when the group made another pass. one chunk hit the driver in the temple and was the cause of his death. the family does not have money for the hospital bills or the funeral. the family also asked the school to send some names of his friends who would serve as pallbearers or flower something. i thought that was odd.

while we're to call these associated youths "groups" and not "gangs," there is a serious concern about retribution. as the principal says it, the "word on the street" is that the one group will "rise up" after the funeral. the police and others are trying to calm them and convince everyone that it is just a tragic accident. we then spent another hour going through our security procedures. apparently we're to already to have known them. i'm not sure how since at least the new folks have never been given the information. i have asked for the information a few times this year. i wish this was not the reason i received it. so we weren't about to be fired, just preparing to be fired upon.

the funeral is thursday.

it is now 9:07. the administrator just took up the student's test since he said he was done. the test is over at 9:55. why would you take it up? i told her that she is not allowed to do that. she responded with example after example of times she had seen it done. i just reiterated that the option is not there. standardized tests do not allow for this. administration must be uniform. despite this, she still took up the test. so now i'm typing, she's reading a magazine, and he's sitting at an empty desk chewing his fingernails. why are we still here??? if she feels like screwing up the administration, shouldn't we at least leave and have some benefit. why keep the kid out of class if you've taken up his test?

i've been sick since the sunday before last. i woke up and my throat hurt. it's hurt since them. the quantity and color of mucus in my chest is disgusting. i actually made an attempt at being grown up. i tried to find out where i could actually use this vaunted "insurance." i nearly even called to make an appointment, but that'd just be crazy. i lost my voice last thursday and friday. it did lead to one of the funniest things that's happened so far this year. my voice would come and go. at some point i just gave up trying and started whispering. i had to let some things go since i couldn't yell at a student down the hall, or being loud, or otherwise couldn't hear me; but it was largely sufficient for giving classroom instruction. while it didn't happen immediately upon starting to whisper, i soon noticed something strange. as i would whisper to the students - usually about the classwork - they started whispering back to me. the first time it happened, i was rather surprised and searched the student's face for a sign of mockery. there was none. he was sincerely trying to do the classwork and just asked a question. i don't think he even realized he was whispering. it took considerable effort not to start laughing right then. the classroom was quite quiet. soon, all the students were whispering back to me. this continued in other classes and on both days.

i was seriously considering "losing" my voice for the rest of the year.

last week

2004-02-29T23:26:00.000-05:00

i figured i'd make a quick post about last week as i watch the oscars and avoid doing overdue work.

last week was memorable. many students were still out due to suspensions. on monday when i signed in there was a sign to see the principal immediately. she informed me that a student had been injured late friday evening/sat morning and had been airlifted. he wasn't doing well and the doctors were trying to relieve swelling of the brain. the police thought it might be gang related and arrests were imminent.

grades were due wednesday, but since we've had a few days off due to weather there were no workdays. that made it tough. it also was tough deciding who to fail and who to give an incomplete. there were so many zeros factored in. students just aren't doing the classwork/homework, and when they miss class, they don't make up tests either.

on thursday, the principal announced that the student had died. there were grief counselors, and the day was just surreal. i really don't know what to say to my students. in second period, two students spent 90 minutes talking about all the different people in their life who'd been killed, the funerals, and the ramifications of such. one girl described in detail how her father had been killed by policemen who'd hired hitman from new jersey, the newspaper accounts, and the amount of prison time received.

next period, the principal again comes on over the intercom. this time she announces that due to impending snow, school will be let out at noon. i hung around for a little while, but the snow was coming down quite hard. everyone else seemed to be waiting around - i think for 2 pm when paychecks were to be distributed. i had two words for these folks..."direct deposit."

i went home and worked through the night on an assignment for a class i'm taking. around 4:36am it's announced that school is cancelled for friday. i crash.

the cat's back

2004-02-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

our principal returned first period today and worked the rest of the day. she was hospitalized for over a week. this is the first full day in 2 weeks (she stopped by at the end of the day friday). i think we've hung on pretty well. i don't envy her discipline backlog. it seems most of us wrote about 5 discipline referral forms a day. that makes 50 per teacher for the two weeks... some students in particular are overdue for some after school detention or some time at home or something. they knew that they could walkout of class, swear, smoke, etc and nothing was happening to them. we'd write it up, but if they weren't fighting or really aggravating the secretary, they weren't going to be suspended.

i may make a post (go ahead laugh at me promising to post) about some major flaws in the disciplining process for my school. of course i tend to agree with the broken windows theory and teach at an alternative school...

these students have some serious lapses in judgement. the principal returns yet some students seemed to be waiting for her return to fight. the girl who yesterday decided to tell the secretary that i attempted to hit her with a ruler (another story time) was smart enough to go tell the secretary that she was going to go fight with a girl and then left to do it. watching the secretary and another teacher try to stop her in the hall nearly made me laugh out loud. she is just ridiculous at times. the principal told me the girl was surprised she was going to be suspended.

i'm not sure what prompted it, but several students were searched during fourth block. students just go crazy when someone is searched. the first one who was to be searched (he refused and cursed at the principal) started saying that another student "snitched" on them. he stated he'd go to his house and have some retaliation.

my tech math class was quite odd. the tech math 1 students were to make any last minute changes to their lab report and type it if they didn't have a computer. (to get 1 typed lab report was actually pretty darn good.) however other students broke out into a discussion of tithing. this continued with some theological discussions that were pretty ridiculous. ("but how did they cross the water if it was before europa?" or "did god make man before or after the earth?") i kept saying that this topic was not relevant to tech math. i did offer to explain how to calculate tithes, and i did do a quick geography lesson about eqypt, the red sea, and the sinai peninsula. all of these questions - which while seemingly pure timewasters were clearly sincere - led to the best of the day. after the bus to the first school had left, and the others would arrive quite shortly, i had one student ask "but quick, just tell me one thing. why are we on this planet for real?" i didn't expect to be asked to answer the meaning of life in 2 minutes when i signed up for this. i told him that many philosophers and thinkers and theologians have spent lifetimes trying to determine what it is, but many other people have found their purpose in life in just a few minutes. i told him it's something he's going to have to have to determine for himself. i'm not sure how well i did answering the question. (i doubt just answering "42" would have been any better.)

sick sucks

2004-01-21T23:46:00.000-05:00

been sick since sunday. this isn't fun. if i didn't have monday off, i may have actually considered taking the day off.

tomorrow the student who repeatedly threatened to beat me up returns (on a day by day basis). that class has been "fun" enough as it is. i was rather perturbed when i found the stack of work for him still sitting in the office. i'm sure he'll work on it quietly and without problem while the rest of the class takes the test for which that they didn't feel like reviewing today. (side note - does anyone else have problems with students paying attention during review days? what about starting homework if given five mintues at the end of class to do so?)

the girls in the school were ridiculous today. i did like the student who told me that the principal had told her that she could go to lunch with another class. i told her that until i was notified by the principal, she didn't have permission to leave. of course she then told other teachers that i told her she could go to lunch. i ended up having a colleague cover the class. she actually tried to explain to the principal why she had lied and said the principal has said she could go to lunch early. that was fun to watch.

my dog skip

2004-01-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

well, one of my students promised to not walk out of class anymore. i forgot to ask her if she'd just skip the entire class. only got the answering machine this time. what really pisses me off is that she skipped a day which was totally review. i was trying to make sure the students started out with a good grade so that they won't just give up after 2 weeks. (yes they will do this.)

on a related subject, absenteeism is getting ridiculous. suspensions, sickness, truency, skipping, pregnancy have combined to shrink my classes to the point where the students seem to think they're doing me a favor to show up. i keep hearing things like "why do we have to do all this work if we're here?"

i ran across a link to a story about bulllies on andrewsullivan.

Dr Juvonen's research found that bullies were admired by their peers, and thus felt good about themselves. Bullies are popular because their dominance earns them respect among the general student population who tend not to sympathise with the victims, the study found.

this fits with what i've been observing. the bullies (and i think we may have more than 7%) seem to be the most self-assured and sure of their self-worth.

snow job

2004-01-11T14:44:00.000-05:00

friday was ridiculous, but was rather nice for me (ignoring that i have set topics to cover before the end of the semester).

i woke up, and - immediately upon gaining my senses - i remembered the impending snow. i opened up the ibook and looked at the weather report. it didn't appear on the radar that snow was falling (there is no window in my room, smart alecs). i figured that we would have school since the buses (i spell it with one s to keep one from inferring anything) would already be rolling. i then went downstairs and noticed my car was covered in white, and it was still snowing - lightly but constantly. i called the central office, but there wasn't even a recording. oh well.

i arrived at school, and it's still snowing. i go through a myriad of errands/todos during my first period planning. the principal announces that any changes due to the weather will be relayed over the intercom. as i start teaching (i'm ready, feeling good, and we have work to do), i realize this is not going to be too productive. i think the students have already gone home in their minds. after about 30 minutes, the intercom crackles to life. the principal announces that school will be cancelled at 11. half the school is sent to lunch immediately and the rest follows minutes later.

the students leave the classwork on their desks. i'm just confused by this decision. the ground is still warm from earlier in the week. while the snow is piling up and covering the roads/sidewalks right now, it will be clear (or at least much, much better) when school is scheduled to end.

instead, the kids are rushed through lunch and shuttled onto buses in a wild confusing torrent.

the other teachers are complaining "do they not care about us?" when we're informed that the day is to be a full teachers' workday for us. i'm quite pleased. i have work to do, the roads should be clear then, and we get paid for a full day. all in all, a rather positive occurence.

i do admit that my prediction as to when the snow would end was about 90 mins too early, but the roads were fine when i left around 3:30 (though pretty much everyone else left earlier). i also found it's much tougher to stay awake when you're not walking/talking but sitting/typing.

i hope we get a few of these "casual fridays."

just walk away

2004-01-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

once again a pretty good day. i did have a few students decide to walk out. this is not uncommon at the school. (i know since they knock on the my door when they've walked out of other classes.) it's a rather inauspicious way to start the new semester. i made a few parent/guardian phone calls today. i was seriously slack in doing so last semester. we'll see if this makes an impact. the principal is really pushing phoning home. at least this way on the discipine referral forms i can check the yes box next to "has the parent been contacted?"

feels like it's been a week already

2004-01-06T20:07:00.000-05:00

like an idiot i didn't get a full night's sleep. (on the plus side, i think i'm now back on schedule.) i was dizzy and lightheaded at times today. that's not normal or fun.

i think it was a pretty decent day. i did get a rather surprising amount of teaching in. the students did a surprising amount of work. there were questions and volunteers. that was good stuff. even in the midst of this, there was nonsense...like the following:

Incident Details:

During the class change, I stood in the hallway as usual. I checked students as they entered the classroom for dress code violations. As Firstname entered the classroom (tardily), I reminded him that he needed to tuck in his shirt. He did not do so.

As I started the general overview of the class, Firstname was still standing up/leaning on a desk. I told him that he needed to be seated in a seat. He stated that he would. I continued, but he did not sit down. So several minutes later, I reminded him. Once again I reminded him to sit in his seat. He mentioned that his knee was hurting. I told him he could stretch it out in front of him if needed. Yet he still stood, and later on I had to remind him to sit down one more time before he did so.

As I reviewed class policies, he kept interrupting me. Each time I told him he needed to raise his hand to ask a question. (The one time he did so, I immediately called upon him, but he'd forgotten his question.) He did not respond positively to the class policies. I started the class material for the day and then passed out a worksheet. The students all completed it, and we reviewed it. This went rather smoothly. Firstname was engaged, but was also somewhat "overly engaged" as he would shout out that I should not review certain problems. I reminded him that he needed to raise his hand.

Firstname voiced his displeasure that we would attend the late lunch. He repeatedly stated he needed to "talk to the honeys." After lunch, I gave the students about 10 minutes to complete the worksheet that was distributed just prior to lunch. Firstname completed nearly all of it and then started humming and drumming on the desktop. This was both a distraction and made it much harder for the other students to hear the answers as we went over the problems. I told him he needed to stop making noise and start the last problem. Firstname did answer questions along with the class but was not responsive to follow-up questions. He continued drumming/humming.

When the class had reviewed all but the last problem, I continued asking the students what answer they'd found for the problems. One student asked for more time. As I waited, I once again told Firstname he needed to stop drumming and find the last answer. He haughtily asked in response if I was "his daddy." I stated I was not, but I was his teacher and he needed to finish his work. He then repeated "oh, so you're my daddy?" a couple of more times. He seemed to become increasingly upset and said that I stated that he had not done any work since he did not do the last problem. (I may have said he needed to complete his work, but I never stated he did not do any.) He then started swearing., (fuck, fuck, fuck...) and said he would knock me out (or something close to that.)

I told him that was enough, and it was time to leave. I stood by the door as he slowly came - continuing to utter similar threats. As we walked down the hall, he walked quite slowly and even stopped to talk to a couple of students and stated to them that he was going to get me. I stopped each time (as I was ahead of him) to ensure that he would continue following. Several times he called out for me to "come on" and said he'd take me out. When he finally made it to the end of the hall where I'd been waiting, he feinted as if to strike me. I just turned to continue and told him to keep walking.

He kept talking aggressively and I passed Mr. Scienceteacher in the stairwell I asked him to escort Mr. Lastname to the office. I then proceeded directly to Ms. Principal.

if any of you are students, please don't believe that your teachers enjoy writing you up. at least this one can't stand it; it's the most annoying waste of time. (although for readers it does provide an easy post.)

i intended to call a couple of parents tonight, but i left the list of numbers at school. annoying. if i hadn't had to type up that crap...

i have survived

2003-12-23T00:06:00.000-05:00

the semester is over. my grades are in. my attendance is up to date. my plant is watered. i can finally crash. i've been teaching 6 days a week for over a month. i should be rather sick - as it is, i'm just "under the weather." (major thanks to those out there praying for me and the students.) i never intended to stop posting. i just seemed in a bit of a fog for the past month.

on the end of course tests from the state, i was particularly pleased that the student with whom i've done quite a bit of individual instruction after school passed with the highest level. he was rather ecstatic and stated he'd never gotten that high before. i think he was the only student in any course to receive that high a score at the school.

most of the students have more than the allowable number of absenses. for those that passed, i wonder if they will be given credit. if not, next semester will look remarkably like this semester.

we had one student who was to graduate in december. i failed her. i volunteered to reteach everything on saturday and let her take the (slightly altered) final again. after four hours (9am - 1pm), she went ahead and took the final with a much more favorable result - 87 vs 34. i told her that this is how one should prepare for cumulative exams.

we had a christmas lunch gathering for faculty/staff at a local restaurant. it took forever. i did get a nice tie from my secret santa. i couldn't stay in the room when a colleague was prompted to sing a medley. i swear she was dying up there. i left and acted like i wanted some dessert.

i really want to go on vacation. i doubt i'll get to do much fun.

i'll try to go back and write about some of the craziness that has happened recently.

cash/bash

2003-11-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

tuesday there was another fight in my room. this one really ticked me off. i don't think either of the students wanted to fight. i think i may post the writeup later. during the afternoon announcements, several of the teachers were called to the principal's office. i was wondering if it had anything to do with the skirmish. she passes out a sheet of paper to all of us. i'm thinking...crap. more paperwork.

when i read it (ignoring errors like using "there" for "their"), i was hoping i would get more paperwork like it. my school was identified as having over 80% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch Or having 50% or more below grade level in Algebra 1 or Biology. (if every "or" had been an "and" we'd still qualify.) what happens to the science/math teachers because our students are poor or behind? a bonus.

i think it's for recruitment and retention. i didn't expect to be paid more to go to this school as opposed to the other high school math job for which i had been recommend. it's not much, but it feels like free money. (november's check will be retroactive too!)

i missed a textbook meeting tuesday because i had to go to another required meeting at the building across the street at the same time. i would have forgotten to go to the one today, but i was writing a letter to go to the parents about dates where i would provide tutoring/remediation in preparation for state given tests. i figured i needed to make sure i didn't schedule a tutoring day when i'd be dealing with textbooks...and then i saw one of the dates was today. i wasn't too late, and i'd already seen the presentation anyway. however i now will be sent quite a bit of materials instead of continuing to fill up my car.

mom's funny story

2003-11-17T23:22:00.000-05:00

i mentioned to my family a recent lunchtime where i was sitting with colleagues and the intercom blasted out. Mr. Archimedes please come to the lunchroom. we all just looked at each other. i eventually just went to the office (which it seems was the intended action.) mom then recounted what she said was her favorite lunchroom story.

she was a kindegarten teacher (back before i existed) at the time. she was quite hungry but was continually interrupted by child after child and was not able to eat. she turned to quickly eat when yet again there was a tap, tap, tap on her shoulder. Mrs. Lastname...? she turned around. Mrs. Lastname, can i go to the bathroom? she said yes and then turned her chair back to hurry up and eat.

soon there was a tap, tap, tap...she ignored it since she knew it was the same girl, and she had just answered her question. yet the girl was persistent. tap, tap, tap...she ignored it again, however the girl still stayed there. tap, tap, tap...mom turned around. Mrs. Lastname...you're on my shoe.

been awhile

2003-11-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

blogger sucks on safari (either that or they've made it crappy since i switched.)

since last time...let's see. report card pickups. textbook fair/preview. staff development day. observed at another school (the other one that offered me a job.) i've not been feeling great.

i've been reading other blogs somewhat regularly, so i felt i should add something for those that read this.

after observing, i tend to think accounts like the following are more rare than i first thought.

Student’s Name: Firstname Lastname 11/05/2003

Referring Teacher: Me Period: 3

Reason for Referral: Student was repeatedly quite rude, lewd, disrespectful, and confrontative.

Student arrived late to class. He threw a piece of paper on the floor. I instructed him to pick it up. He refused and told me to do it. He eventually picked up the paper and then threw it at me and told me to throw it away. I told him to pick it up again. He eventually did so and then proceeded to repeatedly fake like he was going to hit me with it again.

I handed out books and the notebooks which I had collected and reviewed. I also gave Firstname his old notebook which had been on the bookshelf. When I switched bookshelves Tuesday, I removed it and put it with his new one. When he saw it, he proceeded to yell at me. He accused me of having it and hiding it and damaging it. I told him if he would sit down and ask a particular question, I’d be willing in answer him. Apparently this was too much to ask. He eventually sat down but did not ask a question (just kept using this as an opportunity to berate me). So I continued teaching.

About 10 seconds later he says he needs to call home because he’s sick. He gives his word that he’s telling the truth. I told him I would write him a pass in a little while. He continues to interrupt asking to leave. At 11:43 I write a pass for him to go to the office to call home. I instruct him to get a signature from Ms. Secretary regardless of what she says prior to returning. At 11:52, he returns and hands me the pass. It was signed at 11:45 by Ms. Secretary. I ask him where he went subsequently. He tells me the lunchroom.

He then proceeds to pull food out from his pockets and eats chicken strips and drinks a chocolate milk. He refused to put the food away. When finished he starts playing with a handheld 2-way radio. He sets it to make a beeping noise. The lunchbell rings. In the hall, he pretends it’s an explosive and that he’s blowing up the school.

After lunch, he was late and I found him and another student next door in Mr. Nextdoor’ room. They eventually returned to the classroom.

I reviewed what had been covered prior to lunch and then passed out a worksheet. As I was explaining the worksheet, a student interrupted and stated that I "needed some ass." Firstname then jumped in and asked if I was a virgin. Despite my apeals to return to the lesson and to work on assigned classwork, this was not the case. Firstname continued into extremely lewd and descriptive stories. This continued for some time. More specificity is possible if required.

I had returned to my desk to make notes of what was happening. Firstname soon walked up to my desk and tried to take the pad away from me. He then started looking at papers on my desk. I told him repeatedly he needed to return to his seat. Instead he wanted to read the announcement sheet. I had it in my hand and told him to sit down. Instead, he snatched it away and then gave it to another student when he was done. He then proceeded to just wander around the front of the classroom, settling at the overhead projector. At this point he started drawing a stick figure on a transparency. I removed the transparency at the point when he started drawing something in the crotch area of the stick figure. He then picked up a ruler that was on the cart and put it in my face. I took it away from him, and he continued to come towards me. He refused to sit in his seat.

I tried to ignore him and pick up a transparency lying on a desk next to him. However as I leaned over, he moved into me and bumped me. I would not accept anymore of this behavior. I went next door and asked Mr. Nextdoor if he was willing to have Firstname spend the rest of the class in his room. He was amenable.

I then returned to the classroom. Firstname was in his seat with his head down. I told him he needed to go next door. He pretended to not hear me and to be asleep. After much effort he eventually left. Mr. Nextdoor took his notebook and book. He had both a classwork assignnment and a homework assignment. However, when the bell rang, he dropped his book and notebook off.

Prior Action taken by the teacher to correct the problem: I have written numerous discipline referral forms. I gave Firstname multiple chances to change his behavior.

new week

2003-11-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

so friday came and went. i got there and started setting up. first period is my planning period, and i'm quite relieved that i'm not having to proctor or cover someone who is proctoring. i brought some extra lights to use as spots and some music to go along with the slideshow/presentation/thing. about thirty minutes later, the counselor comes into the gym/auditorium and tells me that she needs me to proctor. i'm quite adamant that i don't have time to proctor, if i was to proctor today, i needed to be told in advance, and that there has to be someone available to cover. she pretty much just ignores me and says there's no one else. i am quite perturbed. i don't see how i'm going to be able to set up in time.

i start proctoring. i use the time to make out a quiz that i fell asleep doing the night before. about 25 mins later, there's a knock at the door. the counselor talks to the other teacher. she tells me that someone will be relieving me in a minute - which then happens. i guess there was someone else available.

i get my quizzes copied and get back to work. the sound is pretty much setup as much as possible. i start working on the camera. while it's not great (vhsc), i determine it does have a 20x optical zoom. this allows the camera to be set up in the back, but of course there are no outlets other than by the stage. i just hope that the battery was charged up sufficiently.

a fellow teacher (he's the man) covered me second and third period. (i'm not kidding.) since it was the last day of the 6 weeks, they had one last quiz and to finalize their notebooks (and redo any work they'd done poorly on).

when i went back first period for some things i needed, the counselor knocked on the door. she introduced me to a new student. he'll be taking pre-algebra during 2nd block (along with all my algebra 1a students). same thing happened thursday - except on thursday the kid was a SEVENTH GRADER taking introduction to algebra. next week will be me trying to get him into a different class. he's clearly not mature enough to be with older students and often working independently.

practicing for the rap competition was a bit of an ordeal, but i got through it. the other person (she's pretty cool) planning the assembly disappeared to get prizes so we weren't able to do a runthrough. (it would have been nice."

i got a teacher to tape the event, but she'd never used a videocamera before. i figured it can't be that hard. i show her how to zoom in/out and to start recording. there are some bumps/delays in the show, but overall i think it went pretty well. the 13 lights i added to the front of the stage plus the two spots really made a big difference. (note to planners of events - lighting can make or break an event.)

i did choose to use imovie and went overboard with the ken burns effect. it came out pretty well considering i'd never used the program before and did much of it friday. (hard to do it in advance since i had to add all the pictures from friday after they were taken...on friday.)

it seemed the principal liked the event and gave me some credit; that can't be bad. takedown went quite well as four of us worked together. i tend to judge people on what they do when no one asks. i made the mistake of not asking for a cleanup crew; i ended up with a very good one and more confirmation of the quality of individuals with whom i work.

the shirt

2003-10-30T00:56:00.000-05:00

today was something along the lines of 50s/60s/70s day. i didn't really plan ahead, but i was pretty sure i could find something whenever i woke up and would realize i'm already 5 mins late. sure enough - i just grabbed a pair of baggy courduroys, a "the who" tshirt, and an adidas running suit jacket from just prior to the 1976 olympics.

the students actually were like..."yo - you're wearing something loose. that's what i'm talking about. you're my boy today." etc. the funny thing is that this is more what i'd wear if i had a choice (and didn't care about professionalism). they liked the white patent leather airwalks, but not the shoelaces from early 80s. (around 1984 we sent a bunch of upc symbols from rice chex cereal boxes in exchange for shoelaces with little images of candy and things. once pair resurfaces about 6 years ago, and i kept it.)

weak spirit

2003-10-28T22:47:00.000-05:00

this week is crazy. end of six weeks (fitting in tests in all subjects), spirit week, setting up for the assembly, and...i don't have my planning period. i've been covering the students who are not being tested. tomorrow i'm proctoring one of the tests.

digital camera was nice to use. maybe i'll post some doctored pics sometime so you can laugh at us, but i doubt it. after school i worked some more on the sound system/video projection. the ibook is fun. i connected the ibook to the pa amp and played some coltrane. sounded decent however the center channel was quite noticeably louder than the other four. (this of course is because it has twice the amps running through it.) the teacher providing the beats (and other judge) came down to check it out and provided a cd with tracks. when i put it in i soon noticed something sounding odd. i took off the cover of the house speaker - joys of speaker rot. despite falling apart, it still sounded usable to the two of us. i may bring some speakers, but i'm not planning on it. i think i need to minimize the amount of personal items so that the needs are obvious and can be met.

i got the video projector hooked up and working. itunes little slideshow is easy though i'd like to be able to set up titles and the like. (i've been making images with text and importing them. let me know if you have a better solution.) the stupid thing doesn't have a trapezoidal control. it's quite necessary when you're projecting up onto a screen on a stage. there are a couple others around school. i'd asked one teacher (the most technologically savvy one) what was the best projector in the school. she didn't tell me; she just told me that i could use the one in the media center. i asked again if it was the best - she told me it was the one available to me. later i was talking to the sg advisor. she told me i should talk to ms. savvy since she had the newest/best projector.

spirit week

2003-10-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

spirit week is upon us.

despite the predictions, pajama day went pretty smoothly. one student even wore more than normal (still not much, but more than normal and definitely more than was predicted in the teachers' meeting).

there's an assembly friday. the finalists in poetry and rap will be allowed to perform. i'm one of the judges for the rap category. this all sounded good, but it seemed like much had not been decided. i was wondering who was in charge of setting up for the assembly. are those rapping going to be provided beats? will there be a microphone? who's to make sure there is one and that it works? questions of this sort keep running through my mind. (blame my union programming board days.)

i had already discussed with several teachers projecting photos of folks from throughout the week as everyone filled in and waited for the assembly to start. this seemed to be well-received. i was told there were several digital cameras in the school. the advisor for sga (who's officially planning the spirit week), told me that she'd be taking pictures. i figured that part was cool. i checked and found that there was indeed a screen above the stage and that there are video projectors in the school.

today, i wanted to found out more about who was setting up, but instead of being nosy apparently i wanted to be helpful...or real nosy. i check with the wonderful office secretary. (if you are not on good terms with your secretary, you're an idiot.) i asked if there were speakers, amps, mics, etc. since this is the first year that the school has been in the building (it's a very old building, but these folks just moved in this year after another school moved elsewhere), no one there really knows where things are. i went back to my room to work while she worked her magic. she called me down and presented me with a small cardboard box. it included an amp for a pa about the size of a shoebox and a mic. it was a start.

around the stage area i found an old house speaker with an 8" woofer. it wasn't looking too good; it didn't look like it ever looked good. i also found the base to a mic stand and a wire from the ceiling attached to a box with a jack labeled "intercom output." i'm still not sure why it's there. did people connect the intercom into a pa system?

first thing was to see if the components i had actually worked. i figured out the shoebox and used an old plug as speaker wire. i was guessing it was an eight ohm speaker and used that setting on the shoebox. i plug everything up and once turned on...i have sound. i'm pleasantly surprised.

one speaker and one mic isn't going to suffice. i return to the office (of course) and inquire about any other speakers. i hold up the manual to a nice pa speaker that i found in the provided box. there were none seen that look like the one on the manual. alas. she does tell me that they have a boombox. i investigate.

the boombox is one of those bookshelf speaker systems. pretty standard and pretty cheap. but there were now two more decently sized speakers. i think they were 6" woofers. these actually said they were rated at six ohms. info is good.

she expected me to take the minisystem, but i didn't see the purpose. (it didn't seem to have an auxilary output.) she also gave me two little speakers designed as satellites for the bookshelf system. (yes, it's one of those systems.) the satellites are also six ohms.

i sit down and try to figure out how i want to wire them. i know the total resistance needs to be roughly 4, 8, or 16 as those are the only options on the shoebox amp. i eventually deside to organize them across the stage as follows:
[satellite] [bookshelf] [house speaker] [bookshelf] [satellite]

i wire the satelite bookshelf combos in parallel and then them in series with the house speaker. assuming it was 8 ohms, then the total ohms would be 14. i hoped this was close enough to 16.

i go to try out my diagram and quickly realize i don't have enough wire (or electrical cords to butcher). i figured it couldn't hurt to see if they had any wire. office secretary rocks it. she like...i think i do. something told me not to throw it out. soon i have a coil of wire (though it's so thin it's like thread.)

back to the lab again, i get to work. i strip and twist. soon they're all lined up and wired up. i've added a surge protector just in case as well. i turn everything on. nothing blows up. i slowly turn it up and do a test...test... nothing. crap. turn it up a little more. hmm...i keep wondering what i forgot or screwed up. then i realized the mic was turned off. i turn it on and heard the click over the speakers. good sign.

i test it some more and i determine that one cannot hear much on stage, but those little satellites work great as monitor speakers. the setup gets a rather surprising amount of sound for only being 35 watts. it fills the - admittedly empty - auditorium rather easily. it needs another mic, and i need to figure out how to connect the music source to the amp, but i'm quite surprised that it worked. (i'm also surprised i remembered physics well enough to calculate resistance.)

next step is figuring out the video projector/photo slideshow. i asked for the pictures from today so i could go ahead and start working on how i wanted to show them. i was given them on the camera's removable media -- a floppy disk. all 12 photos fit on the disk, with room to spare. each photo is 40k. i told her to increase the resoution if possible. tomorrow i may borrow a digital camera and use that as well. projecting low res doesn't sound too wise. at least i'll be able to indoctrinate the kids as to the wonders of iphoto.

itRocks

2003-10-26T22:24:00.000-05:00

well, i guess checking macintouch, macosrumors, thinksecret, apple stores (online and physical), etc. finally had their effect. i'm now a proud owner of a 12" iBook G4. i picked it up at an apple store nearby. it had rather brisk sales, and i had to practically beg for someone to take my money. i also picked up an airport extreme card and a video adapter. i'm experiencing some disconcerting weirdness when i shut it when it's in sleep mode (keeps trying to restart and acts like it's trying to eject a disk).

i next want to get more ram (apple prices are ridiculous) and a 802.11g base station. the airport base is quite cool, but quite pricey, so i'll likely get a linksys or something. i enjoy lying in bed and typing a blog entry. too cool.

obligatory picture/post

2003-10-24T00:04:00.000-04:00

i wasn't intending to post, but then i realized i had a lot of work to do. for those that don't waste their time reading slashdot, osnews, or mac rumor sites...apple updated their ibook line yesterday. they now all have g4s. i'm quite enamored. i've been wanting an apple and a laptop for a long time and i've been wanting to play around with panther. (not a tiger.) (our last mac was a powerbook 190c. ignore the bit about able to be upgraded to a powerpc. it came with a sticker that said "powerpc ready." there were just no upgrades made for it.)

education pricing saves $100. i actually would have ordered it last night, but i had to find out who's the school's purchasing agent (and put in their email address...and we don't have email addresses.)

i'm now trying to decide between the 12 and the 14 in. the 12 should be lighter, cheaper, more portable, and have a longer lasting battery. the 14 should be faster and have a bigger screen. i feel like i should be engaged after this purchase. it's still one month's salary right?

warning signs replaced count: 6 over the last two days. i think i might move it to the inside of the door. as the principal says "remember what country you're in." (this is in reference to the school being an alternative school.)

actual teaching updates:
one class is steadily improving. i've been trying to think of what i can do to improve students confidence and interest. today i reviewed graphing horizontal and vertical lines yet one more day. those that tried, caught on pretty well. i then gave out a warmup with 5 questions. only three were related to horizontal/vertical lines. i let them do the others for extra credit if they wanted to. i know it's just a warmup and won't count that much, but i swear the kids were beaming when i went around and recorded their work. a couple ended up with 167s. i don't think they get grades like that regularly. i then showed how if they get a zero, it'd be just like getting two 84s. (many of them have zeros.) i told them to make sure they don't get any more zeros. they were all engaged (well except for two who haven't done anything in weeks.)

another class has stalled at zero. i've not gotten anything done in about two weeks. (i have overhead transparencies that show what i've done - the students haven't done anything.) i have instituted weekly "notebook quizzes" on fridays. if they just write down what i've put on the board, they'd get 100s (or more if i give a bonus). i've not had to worry about the grades being "too good." it's just good if they pass. every day i stress that this could very well be on the quiz on friday so it should be in the notebook (which i provided). it's kinda aggravating. i hope tomorrow's quiz goes well.

warning sign

2003-10-21T23:47:00.000-04:00

i replaced the sign outside the door four times today. i've printed a few extra as well. i'm pretty sure i know who took a few of them. luckily those polypropylene sheets were only like 3 cents a piece. (i also made a couple for fellow teachers.)

if i get tired of this game, i guess i'll just post it on the inside of the door through the window.

not news to me

2003-10-20T23:49:00.000-04:00

i've been telling people to buy books online from amazon in the uk for several years now. i'm pleased to see others are taking advantage of this nonsense. sorry, tim. it's on the nytimes.

i'm failing

2003-10-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

"I'm not going to do any work in this class; i'm failing it." this was uttered by a student who i talked to individually after class in the hall. she should be one of my better students. nevermind that the reason she's not doing well is because she didn't do many assignments.

i swear the smallest things can mean the most. i checked my box at the end of day and low and behold in it was an electric pencil sharpener and 24 pencils. my manual pencil sharpeners suck big time and students use them as an excuse to get up and spend lots of time goofing off. as to the pencils, i tried to stress bringing pencils/paper/book/notebook to class as part of their responsibilities, however it was a losing battle. when i found i could request pencils, i also found it a needless battle. i gave out three ring binders packed with paper, and i'll give out pencils like candy. it's gotten to the point where i think they're selling the pencils on the street or something.

students are constantly knocking at the door and interrupting the class. today, i posted a sign outside the door. it's been popular with teachers if not students. (it's already printed two more for teachers who've requested one and replace it once after it was taken by someone.)

it says:
Students, you must have a pass from another
teacher for you to interrupt this class.

Do not knock if you do not have a pass.

it's in a nice polypropylene sheet. we'll see how long the replacement lasts.

who me?

2003-10-15T23:36:00.000-04:00

no sleep. dang grades. they didn't come out so well particularly algebra...pretty much all of algebra. i finally got to distribute all the graded work (now 3 hole punched) to students. they've all received their own binder with their name on it. many have decorated and personalized theirs. however...distributing didn't go so well. many didn't put their work into their binders.

i told them that keeping past work was part of the notebook grade. third period was the worst. many of the students had zeros on work that they'd decided not to do. sometimes i'd pass back a blank worksheet with the students name on it. i told them they could do the work and turn it in - with a late penalty, but it'd be much better than a zero. several students didn't respond positively to this.

one in particularly would say "nuh uh.", "oh, no you don't", etc whenever i'd give her another worksheet with a zero on it. she'd promptly rip it into little pieces. i don't understand what that was supposed to accomplish.

anyway, i'm sitting at my computer after school when the way too loud intercom interrupts. i'm asked if i have a meeting. i said i do not. the office insists that i do and that the principal (out of town) told me about it. i'm rather confused. i would remember this. i go down and try to actually talk to someone in person. (the intercom was giving me a worse headache than i already had.).

here i'm informed that i have a meeting down at the central office with some woman i have never heard of. oh...and it started 15 minutes ago. i hurry back upstairs, grab some papers, and head out with just a name and that it's taking place on the second floor.

i pull in and sign in. i go up to the second floor. i ask a receptionist where the boardroom is. she says there are three. she points me to another receptionist. she directs me to a boardroom. there is a meeting going on with 6 people. they do not stop when i enter. i take a seat at the table. i am soon swamped with roughly a ream of paper. (no joke.) i have no clue what the meeting is about. really. i'm guessing it has to do with high school math standards as we've been given the them...but we've also been given kindegarten, elementary, and middle school standards.

after i've been there about 15 minutes, the guy next to me passes me a signin sheet. i finally have my first clue as to what the meeting is about. the sheet mentions something about textbook selection committee. i hope this is a mistake or a leftover signin sheet.

i'm pretty much ignored for the next halfhour. then the facilitator says this after passing out yet another stack of papers. "i say all that to get to this." and she proceeds to confirm that we are indeed the textbook selection committee. we are to choose the math textbooks for all the courses being taught in high school for the county. i couldn't keep a straight face for the rest of the meeting. everytime i'd get to be all professional, i'd realize what i'm being asked. me...who's only been working for a little over a month. me...someone who hasn't even read though the textbooks he's teaching from. this will at least go on my resume.

those grades

2003-10-14T23:42:00.000-04:00

unlike nancy, i'm not finished with my grades. i have many grades to record before i sleep. back to it.

a novel concept: teachers blogging

2003-10-14T22:50:00.000-04:00

ran across an article about teachers blogging. lead to a couple of additions to the sidebar (and mentions the infamous tard blog). it also requires registration. (free, but annoying.) here's one nice paragraph:

"It's come to my attention that you have a Web site," the principal told her. Before Thelwell could reply, she continued: "Which is your right." After some dancing around the issue, the administrator came right out and asked, was Thelwell feeling suicidal? Then Thelwell noticed paperwork on the table stating the purpose of the meeting: Assessing the teacher's emotional state.

i have this fear.

this also stuck out at me:

Educators who blog are few and far between, but interest is growing. There's even a loosely organized Educational Bloggers Network, which claims 120 members and which will hold its first convention in San Francisco this November.

sounds fun...but i'll be teaching.

here today.

2003-10-12T21:07:00.000-04:00

nice little article about how well this profession treats new entrants:

"Almost a third of teachers leave the field within their first three years and half before their fifth year, according to a NCTAF report."

official observation

2003-10-10T23:41:00.000-04:00

well my official first observation from the principal was today. she was coming in the infamous third block. for the preobservation meeting i had to write up all about what i was going to teach, what they were going to be doing, how i was going to assess learning, special things about individual students, etc. it was a one page sheet and was designed for someone to just handwrite the information in the sections. i'm assuming most teachers don't teach three different subjects when being observed. this made for quite a bit of paperwork. oh well. at least she said i pretty much did it right.

when i first arrived at school i realized i'd left the printout of yesterday's wwe-in-school project on my desk at home. as i was to turn it in first thing, i was rather perturbed. luckily i was able to use a preceeding post to quickly print off my recollection. our school seems to have no pta or similar. i have not known anyone to volunteer there. i think this is somewhat due to the school being an alternative school so students don't plan on being there for a long time (though many are) and the sad fact that many parents are not able or willing to take such an active interest. this is all to say that we aren't regularly getting free stuff or thanks, no biggie but today the mother of one of the custodial staff made the teachers a couple of cakes. since i had not eaten (and it was good), it really was nice.

second period was mixed. some students were working hard but several of my good students were sleeping. like most fridays, attendance was low. the binders i made for the students seem to be working out. i gave the "notebook quiz" that i'd announced last week. it was a quiz using examples and definitions that were covered in class (all on the overhead); they could use their notebooks to help them take the quiz. i had even recovered several of them thursday and reminded them to put them in their notebooks so that they would do well on the quiz the next day. as long as they wrote the information in their notebooks correctly and then copied it correctly, they should get a 100 on the quiz. while i don't think there were many (if any) 100s, i did notice many more of them taking notes after the quiz. just learning how to take notes and then use them will be a big improvement. now when i get all the books i need...

when third block started...i had two students. i first thought that the rest were quite tardy (not rare); however as i looked over the roll, i noticed many had been suspended or are often absent. there weren't any skipping. the two had walked in and put their heads down. the principal hadn't arrived but i just started teaching. i was getting no response. they both were motionless as if asleep. it seemed rather pointless to teach without either one paying attention. i eventually told them that if we finished, i'd let them get on the computers. i have only let them do this once before; it did not go well. they both sat up as if the lunch bell had rung. (it always makes me laugh how a "sleeping" class wakes up in unison and leaves in a flash when it's time for lunch.) they both started taking notes. i was going over graphing horizontal and vertical lines. they were actually taking notes and answering my questions (and asking questions). this teaching thing is fun.

one of them had asked if were were going to use the calculator to graph the lines. i said we could. after we did quite a few on the board (i did some on the overhead - they did some on the overhead and the whiteboard), i said we could use the calculator to do some. i figured this would be a quick way to support the understanding. however, the second i passed out calculators, the principal knocked on the door. i swear she must think that i'm spending all my time confusing them with calculators. she sat in once for an unofficial observation. it was the other time i'd spent classtime teaching them a new technique using the calculators (plotting points). the feedback all involved using calculators in the classroom.

however she only observed for about 10 minutes until it was lunchtime. (lunch was peanut butter and jelly and carrots.) she didn't return after lunch. i asked her later about feedback, she was thinking monday. there was no mention of another observation time.

i guess it was good she didn't return; they enjoyed the time on the computers looking up information about people they knew in the criminal justice system.

tommy's a racist.

2003-10-10T16:15:00.000-04:00

I checked my groupwise account and got the following message from the principal.

From: Principal
To: Staff
Subject: Fwd: Yeah for Oprah
Message:Teachers, Please read this info to your students. They need to know what they are supporting.

it had an attachment which said:

Good for Oprah!!!! I'm sure many of you watched the recent taping of The Oprah Winfrey show where her guest was Tommy Hilfiger. On the show, she asked him if the statements about race he was accused of saying were true. Statements like"... if I'd known African?Americans, Hispanics, Jews and Asians would buy my clothes, I would not have made them so nice.. I wish these people would *NOT* buy my clothes, as they are made for upper class white people."

His answer to Oprah was a simple "YES". Where after she immediately asked him to leave her show.

My suggestion? Don't buy your next shirt or Perfume from Tommy Hilfiger. Let's give him what he asked for. Let's not buy his clothes. Let's put him in a financial state where he himself will not be able to afford the ridiculous prices he puts on his clothes.

BOYCOTT PLEASE, & SEND THIS MESSAGE TO ANYONE YOU KNOW !!!!!

This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden.

i found this ridiculous. a simple google search lead to multiple soruces debunking this obvious falsehood.

selected sources for those interested:

i responded to the principal since i figured she'd just send out another message, and it'd be done with.

Ms. Principal That message is actually without any truth. Here are some websites to read more about the rumor. I knew you'd want to know. http://www.truthminers.com/truth/tommy_hilfiger.htm http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/hilfiger.html http://www.tommy.com/help/rumor/rumorPittsburgh.jhtml
Me

a few minutes later, i get a message:

From: Principal
To: Arch
Subject: Re: Fwd: Yeah for Oprah
Message: "This was what happened on Oprah's show recently, that's all I know."

i promptly reply again:

The scenario as described never happened. Tommy Hilfiger has never been on the show. (If he had and Oprah Winfrey kicked him off, it'd have been national news.)

The websites explain the history of the rumor more fully. One of those is a newspaper article which is now hosted on the official website of Tommy Hilfiger.

i hoped that the principal would send a message before teachers arrived and were able to tell students" the truth about tommy." when i checked for messages, this was in the inbox.

From: Principal
To: Staff
Subject: Oprah Comment
Message: "Teachers, The Oprah comment/show thing was sent to me from Person UnknowntoArch. You may read it at your own discretion. It is not meant to create a riot or anything.
Principal"

since the "untruthatude" had not been address, i sent a message (with good advice/help from a friend who made it much more pleasant) to the staff and ccd the principal:

From: Arch
To: Staff
CC: Principal
Subject: Re: Oprah Comment
Message: "Afternoon all: For those who read the message purporting to be about an incident during a recording of the Oprah Winfrey Show, I thought you would be relieved to know that the information is completely untrue. The Anti-Defamation League, whose mission it is to "secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens," has researched and investigated the rumors and found them to be without merit. Please visit their letter about these rumors at http://www.adl.org/rumors/letter_hilfiger.asp

enjoy - Arch

ps. if you're still unsure, Oprah sells Tommy Hilfiger towels and quilts on her website.
towels: http://www.oprah.com/presents/2003/oathome/olist/oathome_olist_bath_04.jhtml
quilts: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/olist/omag_olist_0029_bed.jhtml"

retarded

2003-10-10T06:56:00.000-04:00

i just was about to run out the door thinking i was about 5 minutes late leaving. then i realized it was still dark. somehow i woke up, thought i overslept, hurridly dressed and ran to the door - all before my alarm went off. that was dumb. i want that sleep back.

the good

2003-10-10T00:24:00.000-04:00

well, i was feeling pretty down about the day and then as i was typing up the report i saw a good friend show up on my buddy list. i hadn't talked to her in a while and she always cheers me up. soon she'd sent me a message and she'd brightened my day once again. i needed that. despite how much i like to think i can control how i feel, a good friend (and even better a cute girl) always proves me wrong.

i also was given a sheet during my planning period and told i was going to have a new student. he's taking algebra 2. he'll be my only algebra 2 student. (i don't even have a book. i had to borrow his.) however he's in the same block as another student who tried to use the excuse that she wanted to be in algebra 2 as the reason why she wouldn't do her tech math work. she has just recently stopped it. (we're talking like 45 mins every class.)

luckily she was not there for his first day. i was blown away. i'd forgotten what it was like to have a student do work when you assign it and to be treated with respect. he was doing high quality work and calling me sir, asking permission, etc. he rocks.

day from hell.

2003-10-09T16:45:00.000-04:00

I had a couple of incidents today. This was the second and less major.

Algebra 1b students were to be taking a test. STUDENT was to be working on section 3.6 in the book, however she refused to do any work. When I would remind her to get her book out or to open her book to a certain page, she would yell back with things like. "Why you talking to me?" "Why you in my face?" "Get away from me." She was extremely loud and would not stop talking - despite the fact that the other students were to be taking a test. I told students individually and as a group to stop talking over 10 times. (More likely 15-20.) Any time I told her individually to be quiet, she would yell back rudely about why I was telling only her. This of course was inaccurate. I reminded her multiple times that she had a notebook quiz tomorrow and that it would be over examples and definitions that were put on the board or overhead. Since I was pretty sure she had not taken any notes, I started writing specific examples and definitions on the overhead. I told her that these would definitely be on the notebook quiz tomorrow so she should write them in her notebook. She did not do so.

A fellow student in the back far corner of the room asked for help. As I was explaining the lesson to her, she told me she couldn't hear me. I turned and in a raised voice (so they could here me) once again told those talking they needed to be quiet. There was no change so I started to call out the names of those in the group that was talking. Immediately upon saying "STUDENT," she became irate and started screaming back at me about how I had no right to say she was talking, what's wrong with me, etc. She started swearing and being quite disrespectful. I did not respond and walked to my desk.

When I sat down and started writing her up, she stated she didn't care but continued to rant about how could I write her up for talking etc. She also made some extremely vulgar remarks. She denied that I even ever gave her any instructions for the day or told her to write down the information that I did on the overhead. In response to her comments, I informed her that I was not writing her up for talking. She then told a classmate that she should just come up and take it from me. Soon thereafter she walked up to the desk and asked to have it. I was not done with it. As I'm still writing, she grabs it and attempts to snatch it away. I was still sitting and I affixed my left hand to her left wrist to remove it from the paper. Immediately once I did so, she lunged across the desk and pushed me in the neck. I immediately released the paper and her wrist and got up away from her. I told her she would need to leave immediately. She refused to leave. I then went next door to ask Mr. Teachernextdoor for aid in either watching the class or escorting her to the office. He and I were in the front of the classroom while she prepared to leave. As she approached, I stepped back towards the dry erase board even farther to give her more room. She stated that I better give her room yet she then kept coming directly at me and put her shoulder into me and gave a shove on her way by. Mr. Teachernextdoor escorted her out.

the more involved incident:

The first time I realized that there was something of concern when I was standing by the overhead projector and going through examples. I heard Student say what I thought was that someone was "dumb." I asked her what she said and if she was speaking about a fellow student. She replied "but she is dumb" etc. I told her this was completely unacceptable. She became very disrespectful and loud and was not cooperative. At this point it was obvious she needed to leave. I told her she needed to leave. She refused and told me to "go on" and similar. I then went across the hall and got Mr. TeacherAcrossTheHall to return with me to escort her to the office. I told him she needed to leave the class.

Immediately upon her departure there was a palpable change in the classroom. The students noticed it and remarked about how quiet it became and how loud she had been. I continued teaching. About 5 minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was Student. I cracked the door and asked what she wanted. She pushed passed me and ignored me. Mr. TeacherAcrossTheHall asked if she could return. I told him I'd rather she did not. However, as it was such an ordeal to get her to leave the first time and she was already back in her seat, I just went back to teaching.

Almost immediately, I realized she was standing up and walking to the back of the room where the student she had been disparaging was sitting. I called to her to return to her seat. When she ignored me and started verbally attacking the other student, I quickly went to the back and told her to return to her seat. She kept coming at the other student. I stepped between them. She paused for a second and I thought she was about to return to her seat â€“ instead she punched the other student in the jaw. She kept trying to draw the other student into a fight. I told another student to go next door to get Mr. TeacherAcrossTheHall. It quickly degenerated further as Student kept lunging towards the other student and I tried to stay between them.

The pushing led to the student and I eventually falling over a bookshelf. Before the student could stand back up, Student kicked her in the face. I pulled her away. She did not settle down and wanted to continue the altercation. Mr. TeacherNextDoor had arrived and Student gathered her items and went into the hall where she was escorted to the office.

i felt like i let the one student down by not removing the bully and letting the assault take place.

posts

2003-10-08T23:16:00.000-04:00

so i'm still alive. they just threaten me so far. i've got stories to write up...just not the energy. i really need to start exercising again. i have been making some notes and storing the stories as drafts. when i get some energy, there'll be some decent stories. i also found a few educational links and blogs by teachers/educators and have added them to the sidebar. if you know of some good ones, let me know.

report cards

2003-09-28T19:37:00.000-04:00

well, since most parents didn't come to pickup report cards thursday night, most found out their grades friday morn first period. as that is my planning period, they'd had time to consider their grade before they got to my class. however it was apparently not enough time for one student. she spent the first 15 minutes constantly interrupting me trying to figure out why i "gave her" a poor grade. i kept repeating that if she had a question concerning her grade, i'd talk to her after class. i doubt it had anything to do with the work that she refused to makeup. the refrain: "i'm not gonna do that; just give me a zero." comes to mind. i eventually just ignored her (as suggested at the ilt support meeting.)

she still didn't give up. every 20 mins or so she'd say something like, "i have a question." i'd look at her and then she'd start in again. finally a fellow student turned around (she'd moved out of her seat by now to the table in the back of the room) and said to her, "i got the exact same grade. that's why i'm doing this now." (referring to the worksheet assigned as classwork). she was not half-assing it either. there was some really good work going on...but only in 2/3 of the class. this was both quite uplifting and saddening. the 1/3 that was not working hard was made up of quite intelligent students, several who should be at the top of the class.

still they did eventually do the classwork - though there was quite a bit of sharing of answers. (i said they could work with one other student if they wanted, but not all other students.) i need to figure out a better way to stop this sharing. i've spread out the chairs; i think it' helped, but it sure doesn't stop it.

mary jane's parent teacher conference

2003-09-25T23:22:00.000-04:00

today were parent teacher conferences as well as report card distribution. i had three parents show up. i'm quite disappointed. i believe the effectiveness of a teacher is largely determined by the expectations at home.

i had an interesting second period. i decided not to give tests all the same day. (i'm learning.) for some reason, most of the students showed up today. this was excellent. i might not give so many incompletes next six weeks.

several still haven't taken the test from the first six weeks. i did get a couple of them to take the first test instead of the second one. slowly but surely...

i had to kick a student out of the class. he came in while i'm giving the instructions. he was beligerent, loud, and rude. i told him to go to the counselor and take the test. he would not do so. he eventually went to another teacher's room. that teacher came and got a test for him. when the bell rang, he never came back to give me the test. i don't understand the point of taking it if you're not going to turn it in.

if you're still reading, good for you. this was the more interesting part anyway. today while i was proctoring/answering questions/giving hints for the test, the class was mostly quiet and decent (once underway). all of a sudden, i sensed a change and heard/saw something slide across the floor. it stopped like two feet from me. it appeared to be a little baggie of marijuana. i just stopped for a second. at this point, one of the students from the back of the room had jumped up and dove face first and snatched it before i picked it up. he stuck it in his pocket, ignored me and went back to his test. i told him to talk to me after school. like five minutes later i was at the board (still just the one), and it all happened again. this time i was in the front of the room so no one could get it. i picked it up and put it in my desk. there was a fallout from this story.

ignoring what happened to slider, there are several known drug dealers in the school (my classes). having police there made them quite uneasy. when this info spread, it was tough to keep them in the classroom. students kept debating who was the snitch. i got to learn the lovely "snitches get stitches" and be asked if i was the snitch. reading this soon thereafter wasn't too fun.

grades and their discontent

2003-09-24T23:14:00.000-04:00

so i got most of the grades done. spent all freakin workday on them. the substitute who'd been covering the class until they could find a teacher had a fair amount of grades recorded for one class, less so for another, a couple for another, and none for the last. she'd also had given a "thinking maps" test.

i'd seen an entry in the gradebook labeled that, but without any grades recorded. since this is the case for several other entries, i wondered if she'd given the test or not...until i found a stack of them ungraded in the desk. well, i'm not quite sure how these things are to be done or how she'd told them to do them, so i didn't feel too comfortable grading them. i figured i'd have to just give credit if it was done or not.

as she substitutes relatively frequently for different teachers, i ran into her soon after discovering the stack. i asked her about them and if there was any other work needed to be graded. she volunteered to take care of them. this would be quite beneficial as i had much to grade and enter (and figure out how to enter) already. she said she'd come by after school and get them. as i'm pretty much the last to leave (with the principal), that sounded great.

well, i was in my room working and kept expecting her to come in. after about a half an hour i went down to the room where she'd been substituting. it was locked. oh well. this whole scenario happens again about a week later. then, the friday (a week before grades are due), we have the conversation again. i ask if she's positive she can have the grades in by friday. she's like no problem. she borrows the teacher's edition of the book and takes the ungraded tests. she says that she'll be in real early and drop the stuff off in the office. i'm feeling good.

truthfully, when i get to school, i'd forgotten about it. i see my box is pretty full and think i've gotten something interesting. it's just the teacher's edition. no work. oh well. it's only monday. anyway, big isey hits on thursday and we have the day off. when i come in on friday, i still have not received those grades. the way the grades are looking, nice high test grades would be very nice.

i wait until like 9 and then call. she's surprised grades are still due, but despite being without power she says no big deal and will call back with the grades later in the day. i'm pleased. i spend the rest of the day working.

i call in the afternoon since i haven't heard from her. (i have her home and cell number.) i don't get a response. i call a few more times. still nothing. i eventually have to leave, but i talk to the principal and she says i can just turn in the grades monday morn. i still haven't found how to input absences into the program either.

i call a couple of times over the weekend but to no avail. monday morn, i call and get no response. i just leave a message. i then start trying to figure out how to input the absences. i end up asking three other teachers before i come across one who both thinks we have to input them and knows how to do it. halfway through first period, my cell rings. booyow. she'd been out of town but has the grades. i think the students who are now passing should be pleased.

two bits

2003-09-23T00:31:00.000-04:00

i had a student tell me i needed to shave and get a haircut. i found this funny. she's right of course.

finally posted

2003-09-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

I finally typed up my stories from wednesday. this draft option is kinda nifty.

well i was running a tad late since i've been fighting a cold for a week and it makes it much harder to awaken in the morn. i try some more to figure out the grade program that we need to use since those grades are due friday... i also check weather.com to find out about the coming storm. the principal is up for some principal of the year award so there are "visitors" today. she knocks on the door and asks if i'll be able to put something up on the bulletin board today beforehand. um...no. she gets the art teacher to send some students to fix it up and then cover it with artwork. (i have a pretty cool idea for a bulletin board but i'm not sure if it's quite pc.)

i realize that i need to make the handouts for the day. the plan is to teach a few sections and get those who haven't taken the major quiz or long past test to take it so i can get the grades in. i determine what i want to give as a quiz and classwork and then head downstairs to the copier. as it was a two-sided original i head to the office since it's the only copier that can do two-sized. i enter and immediately seem like i'm interrupting a personal conversation (not chit-chat - something of concern). so i turn around to go to the other copier, oh well. i remember that one teacher had compasses and protractors she said i could borrow so i stop in. she's quite helpful and provides several of each. i then proceed upstairs.

i unlock my door and look at my watch. i realize class starts in 2 minutes, and i forgot to make the copies. retard. i turn around and dash back downstairs to the office (no time to use the other copier now). bell rings right as i'm finishing. i run back upstairs. a few of my students are outside my locked door. i notice the bulletin board is pretty much done. i try to insert my key but it sticks after only going in like an eighth of an inch. once student said she'd touched the handle and got something on her hand. i realize someone has superglued the lock. i'm rather perturbed. i was gone for 3 minutes max. i now have a class but no classroom. another teacher let me use his room since he had only one student that block, and the janitor is notified. this wasn't not good. i had two students who were going to finally make up the test, others who were to make up the major quiz from the day before. all these were locked up in my classroom.

it was rather odd to teach in someone else's classroom (especially with them there). it's sorta like taking a shower in someone else's bathroom with them watching. everything seems out of sorts and one is a tad self conscious.

anyway, i tried to teach a lesson but it didn't seem to go that great. i passed out a short easy quiz and then had them work on a worsheet as a class. this was intended to help boost grades. it didn't have that effect for several as they refused to do it. zeros affect grades rather negatively. sadly, it seems most have a zero or two. motivation is a serious concern.

i brought a decent lunch and was looking forward to eating it. it was still locked up in my room when lunch came. i realized i actually had some cash (instead of relying on the cafeteria lady to let me slide). so i got one of those pizza slices only found in schools, a scoop of pineaple, a bag of chocolate milk. as i was last (it took a while to realize i had cash) she told me to get another slice. woohoo. i go and sit with the teachers. cafeteria lady soon comes out and plops a chicken leg on my plate as well as on another teacher's plate. it's hot and rather good. she is so freakin cool.

third period was fun again. despite there being two male teachers and only four students (all female), it was not smooth. when it was time to return from lunch, there was no class. we soon got a distress call from the office over the intercom. several were hiding out around there (actually had young kids stand at attention so several could squat down behind them to hide). we eventually get those three back to the classroom. (the other had been hiding elsewhere and hadn't been perturbing the office.) it was not a very productive class period. the principal actually came up later and called them out into the hall and gave then a stern rebuke apparently. i was just trying to return the board to the absolute pristine condition that the other teacher keeps it in. (he kept erasing information that was on the board that students needed.)

eventually a locksmith came and drilled out the lock. it was a very palpable sense of relief to return to my classroom. it was at this point i looked at my newly decorated bulletin board. it was pretty nice. there were six (two rows of three) rectangled shaped pieces of art. each had a word or two (such as: peurto rico, d-hood, usa, etc) and were decorated with designs and multicolors. what did the piece in the middle, top row say? "white boy"

principal announced early in the day that any decision concerning school tomorrow due to the hurricane would be announced at the end of the day. i found this slightly silly. the info i was hearing was for a landfall between noon and three. no school district wants to risk that amount of liability. finally it was official that school was cancelled. an emergency teachers meeting was called for after school. i'm wondering if i'm ever going to get my grades done.

we meet in the wonderous media center. pretty much two things of note happened. one, the principal had an aside which implied that grades would now would be due monday. that made me feel better. the other was that the teachers workday would pretty much go on. if it didn't, we'd be called that morning (and we wouldn't be paid for that day). some teachers were quite thrilled to find out they could be called as early as four am if the workday was postponed. i declared them insane.

we were given instructions as how to prepare our rooms for the ise storm. we were told to make sure our windows were shut and latched and to cover our computers and equipment with garbage bags. these bags are not rectangle shaped; they're more like cone shaped. these are not very effective for doing anything. they didn't give us duct tape or anything either. luckily one teacher had a roll of rather thin masking tape. i end up just putting the bags on the monitors and taping some on top of the bookcase near the windows. i move important boxes off the floor. (there's concern about the roof as the roofers aren't finished.)

as i check my windows, i start noticing quite a few holes in the windows. these holes look suspiciously like bullet holes. i attempt to cover the holes with the masking tape. i all of a sudden realize that i'm being perfectly framed by the window and a bullet hole was right in front of me. i got some weird feeling like a sniper was watching me.

i'm still yet to be paid.

grades

2003-09-16T03:49:00.000-04:00

this week will be fun. ignoring "the I" bearing down, the first grading period ends wednesday. grades are to be in friday. i was promised by the substitute that she'd have graded the work she assigned before i started a few weeks ago. i wish she'd done so. (she did some funky stuff mostly to kill time thinking they'd have someone in a day or two.) she also told me she'd do progress reports. i just found out from the students this wasn't done.

so this week i'm giving some tests/major quizes/learning the grading program/entering grades/urging students to makeup work/etc. it's going to be a very long week.

i want a hurricane party.

2003-09-14T23:58:00.000-04:00

I will be moving posts here shortly. we'll see if i like it.

the post i wanted to make

2003-09-12T02:46:00.000-04:00

i'm not sure how this post will develop. like many of americans - and especially my peers, the events of september 11th made me wish i could do something to help in response. there were fund-raisers and community events, but many of us had a deep desire to serve our country - specifically militarily. however this option didn't seem available to me. (i received an rotc scholarship in high school, but they revoked it over my vision. maybe i'll tell that story sometime.) i kept thinking of other options. i've investigated americorps and peace corps on way too many late nights. (i still think peace corps could be an option in a few years.)

so now, two years after that rude awakening, i find myself as a teacher. i can't say sept 11 is wholly responsible for this. i found out after high school that a teacher stayed two years past when he wanted to quit because my mother mentioned to him that i was looking forward to having him as a teacher. when i found out, i felt like i had a debt to repay. being a teacher is a way for me to try to do so. (i need to contact/thank him sometime.) i also needed employment.

please don't be confused; i don't feel being a teacher is an equivalent level of sacrifice as military service. it's just something i can do. last year at this time i felt i had made little positive impact in the past year. this morning i sat at the wonderful computers in the back of the room and went to nytimes.com. i read coverage of memorials and other related stories. i know i'm no hero, and i often question my effectiveness - but it's good to feel like i'm not a drain on the country.

new features

2003-09-12T01:51:00.000-04:00

thanks google. blogger will now have many more features for cheapskates (or teachers). i'm looking forward to having syndication (still to come). it also now has a title field - should help remind me to think of a title. i might go back and add titles to posts; don't expect it anytime soon though.

absconded camel

2003-09-11T18:18:00.000-04:00

i intended to post something about what being a teacher means to me on this day of remembrance. instead i need to get back to writing discipline referrals. i also need to figure out how to report the theft of my camel hair blazer.

2003-09-11T03:05:00.000-04:00

so i could post some stuff about tues/today, but i've graded papers for a couple of hours and i'm tired. i will say that absenteeism sucks. i'll assign homework but half of them won't be there when i assign it and only half of those that were there when i gave an assignment will be there the next day. makeup work is a big headache.

Monday - new week

2003-09-09T02:14:00.000-04:00

i thank god for truancy. in my first class, only one-third shows up. i go over the syllabus. i give back the tests to allow them to work out problems they've missed. (they need to describe their error and rework the problem correctly in order to receive half credit back.) all students in attendance have taken the test. this works out well. it's quiet. i assign homework. they don't have books assigned yet since there aren't enough for each student to have one. so instead i have to make copies of the page. they're to come back to pick up a copy.

class two. only half show up. review syllabus. i have a worksheet for workbook student to do. while ringleader is there, it's nowhere near friday. i also give them the option to correct problems for half credit. they put their heads down. i keep urging them to help themselves and reminding them of the class participation portion of the grade which was just mentioned in the syllabus. one student asks what it would take to correct a question. i explain it thoroughly. surprised response. "oh. that's all?" and then he put his head back down. "i'll keep my fifty." i then reemphasize how much tests count. no one is interested.

i help workbook student and explain how to set up several problems on the worksheet. she seems quite pleased to have instruction. i'm pleased to have an interested student. after she starts progressing, i start teaching the other as well. it's 2 chapters previous. i'm now teaching out of the same chapter as i am for a class which is a prerequisite. eventually there's some interaction. lunch.

lunch. i quickly make the copies for the other class. good ole chocolate milk. on our way back, rl is messing around with a scale. he doesn't know how to use it. i explain it and show him. we go back to class. i then explain to everyone how the scale works and talk about mechanical advantage, levers, etc. there was some interest. i figure any chance to teach something.

last class. i have a worksheet. it's completed near the end of class. class asleep. i start cleaning the whiteboard. i have no cleaner. i step out to check in with a teacher next door if they're not teaching for some. i return no later than 1 minute later. i see rl coming out of my room. he's carrying a bag of candy. i ask him what he was doing in the room. he said he was going to mess with a student but she was sleeping. he's carrying a bag of candy.

bell rings. student wakes up. she digs in her bookback. she asks who's been in the room. i say rl. she said that he'd taken her candy that she was going to give to her sister. i go after rl. he vehemently denies it and runs off to the buses. that's just crap.

at the dinner table, i recounted a discussion i had today with a teacher who started the week before i did. i mention that i thought he was late twenties/early thirties, but at lunch i asked him about where he lived in new jersey. he said he went to seton hall, then worked in industry for 19 or 20 years, but also set up his own tutorial center. mom responds normally: "19 or 20?"
me: yeah. i guess he's not late twenties.
dad: "so he's not a real teacher either."

mom and i just laugh. he repeatedly asks us to explain what was so funny.

last few days...

2003-09-09T01:03:00.000-04:00

i figure it's time to post at least a few things about the last several days.

friday:
i blame friday for my lack of posting. one of those...if i don't think about it, it didn't happen kind of days. i arrived early as i the plan was to give a test in two periods/classes. i wasn't going to just be copying tests from teacher materials however. i'd planned what i wanted to give, but hadn't made them out yet. i decide to type up the questions that i was going to print out, cut to fit the rest of the questions, and then make copies. i load microsoft "works" and start typing my questions. i soon realize that i'm going to have to print at some point but the dot matrix printer (i'm not kidding) was out of paper. i check the teacher's lounge, but that computer doesn't have a printer attached. i'm now starting to wonder if i'm going to have everything ready in time.

i continue on to the main office. i try printing from the secretary's computer (running winxp and connected to an hp laser printer), but i can't log in to groupwise for some reason. the secretary says there is paper available in a storage area. i'm really starting to worry now. i hope she says she'll get it in a few minutes and she'll let me know (not like i could ask her as we don't have phones in the rooms and the excessively loud intercom is controlled in the office). instead she beckons me to follow her...slowly...down a hall...down another hall...through a tunnel...past the guards... i enter a decent sized classroom full of chairs and supplies and boxes - all boxes are used boxes with brightly decorated yams on them. all boxes i've seen in the entire school are yam boxes. [make your own ralph ellison comment.] "oh, but they were here." i keep looking, increasingly irritated that i have to find track feed paper in order to use the dot matrix printer. i find in a corner a box with a small about ~ 150 pages. that's plenty for me yet i had to convince her that it'd be fine for now. (despite my anxieties, the secretary is cool and a good resource.) i rush back to my room.

i connect the paper. i print. it's extremely faint. i print again. same thing. crap. oh well. only like 30 minutes until class. i run downstairs to the copier (no there isn't a copier upstairs). i set it for quite dark (just light enough to keep it from adding lines) and run a few copies. back to the room. i cut, arrange, tape. 10 mins left. back downstairs. the lounge copier sucks - no coallating, stapling, etc. luckily no one is using the one in the office. i'm the man with a copier. copy. copy. booyow. head back upstairs. i am putting my key into the doorknob as the bell rings. oh yeah.

the first period, everything went relatively smoothly. students take it pretty seriously; and while they don't seem to be too stressed if they don't know an answer, they at least put effort into it. i am pretty liberal with giving help (i always am), but despite my urging, they didn't seem to check over their work too well. oh well. i'm still feeling pretty good. i have tests. they are complete. it went smoothly. next class.

[string of curses] this is not going so well. students are not in their seats. they are laughing at the idea of a test. (i guess the review and reminders every day that week didn't sink in.) two students refuse to take it. one because she says she's missed all week. i'm too involved trying to get people in seats and working. it's in two parts as lunch is in the middle of the class. (yep. right in the middle of teaching/testing it's pizza time.) students announce they are just going to work together. i state this is obviously unacceptable. this is ineffective. students just ask each other questions and pass papers around. by this point i realize "all week" means the day before. the student refuses to take the test despite having no real excuse at this point. i give her a piece of paper that says "i chose not to take the test." for her to sign. she signs another student's name. i continue monitoring the cheating...uh testing. one student (the main ringleader) asks a question while i'm walking by right next to him. i ask him if he had a question. he says yeah, but not you. i ask who he was talking to - either me or another student - if me, i'd help; if another student, it was cheating. he said another student. great.

the sad part is that while they're cheating and all working together, it's clear they're not doing well. this is particularly disappointing since it was quite a bit of work making out the test and making it significantly easier.

eventually one student asks me for help. (she was the only one with that test.) i give some hints. it's not enough apparently as she gets up and asks fellow students for more help since i'm a failure of a teacher and won't help when a student asks (nevermind that i wasn't done helping, i just told her to think about it for a bit.) i tell her this is unacceptable and she needs to return to her seat. she's quite rude and balls her paper up into a ball and throws it across the room. ringleader is now out of control. as the principal had told me that anytime that a student needed to be removed immediately he could be sent to the counselor. i tell him he needs to leave and he demands a referral. the principal told me they could be filled out later, but he demands it. i figured why not. he leaves. paperballer now queries whether i'm writing her up. i told her i would be as she'd been tardy four times that week and i was instructed to write students up after three. she now really loses it and continues to rant about my teaching and lack of helping her. i wonder how my "lack of help" is relevant to her tardiness as it came afterwards. she tells me that they'll tell her mom but she doesn't live with her mom. but she then adds "i don't give a fuck - and you can tell my mom that."

ringleader returns - it's only been like 5 minutes. he says the counselor said she'd see him after lunch. everyone in the main class is "done" with the first half. the student in one of the other classes is mostly done. i collect the first half as it's time for lunch.

lunch. - i'm feeling pretty much a loser at this point. i ended up getting a free chocolate milk though.

back to the jungle. i give out the second half. more of the same. yet they're now more wound up. ringleader is now constantly walking around the room, sitting on desks, opening blinds, changing the thermostat, etc. so much for that counselor option. eventually everyone is done copying, and i collect the test. the bitch session begins. for the last fifteen minutes i get to hear how much i suck. the interesting thing is that i required them to speak one at a time and i could respond if i wanted to. while tearing into me, i simultaneously received the most respect i'd gotten all week.

next class. small class. first time everyone was there. they're getting tired of the work books. i don't blame them. looks like i'll be writing some worksheets. ugh.

school day over. amen. i want a pitcher of guinness, a quiet bar, and my own corner. instead, i head to the principal's office. i've submitted quite a few discipline referrals which seem to have little to no effect on a certain class. we talk for the next hour and a half. it's interesting. she basically tells me that she doesn't think they've got great instruction while i wasn't there, they were allowed free range, and that they're still adjusting. she kept saying "they like you, really" and that they'd call her if they didn't. both of these i found odd. she tells me about her first teaching position. it sounds rather similar. she quit - her principal eventually got her back after taking over for several weeks and making life harsh for the students. hmm...sounds good. she doesn't volunteer. she does mention that there have been a recent string of teachers and that they may feel like they're being rejected. also found out that i have a group of students who are concerns for all their teachers as well as some background about students which i won't post but it does make me wonder if those comments were really "idle." i ask what to do about all the discipline forms i am about to fill out. she says to hold off if i can. yeah. i'm sure it was a one day thing. she also advises to go back even earlier to find out where they have a mastery of the material. i'm not sure how much earlier i can go. i figure they'are about 40% behind already. i question if doing so would remove any chance of them learning enough to pass the end of course exam. she says that if they get to a point where they're confident, they'll speed right up and it'll be fine. we'll see.

i realize i have 15 minutes to get downtown to pay for my lateral entry application. however i don't have my checkbook. oops. i cash a check and run up to the office right at 4:59. locked. check next door. someone comes out to let me in. alas, the guy i need to pay has left, and they won't take cash. i'll try again monday.

i go home. i try to do something friday and saturday. i do nothing. i sleep. i recover. i grade papers. maybe i won't get sick as i thought i would.

day three

2003-09-04T23:26:00.000-04:00

i got home from day three. i checked ups.com for an update on the status of my alarm clock of the gods. it said it was delivered. i found this puzzling. (i blame the sleep.) i had already convinced myself it'd be friday at the earliest. i open the front door...booyow.

you know you got one heck of an alarm clock when it comes with a manual as well as an instruction reference card.

second day

2003-09-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

i'm tired and won't post all of today's experiences or expound upon them right now.

saw my first young adult white male. he was a computer technician making my groupwise account work. i swear he gave a triple take when he walked in the classroom to set it up and saw me teaching it.
implemented the seating chart. sorta.
i found discipline referral forms. i now have a stack of them.
"we're black. we don't do homework."
these kids must go to bed after i do. they seem to sleep all day.

first day.

2003-09-02T13:37:00.000-04:00

7:30 am. i arrive and sign in. of course my name isn't on the sheet. i'm carrying at least 2 feet of books/notebooks/binders/etc. it's hot. i'm wearing a suit (my black one - without the vest - for those that know). i'm hot. i go to the second floor to my room. considerably warmer on the second floor. the door is locked. having just read school policies the night before (great bedtime reading) and not knowing how long it'd take until the door was unlocked, i wasn't going to leave the stuff outside the door. i head back down. i'm sweating. i go back to the office. secretary calls maintenance guy (i think) to unlock the door. i carry my armfull back upstairs. warmer still. door still locked. increasingly perturbed. i return. she calls over the intercom again to the guy. she then gives me her keys to get into my room. why she called for the guy if she was going to give me her keys, i don't know. it's even warmer upstairs. i get into my room....air conditioning is good stuff. i am quite pleased to put down my burden and take off my jacket.

i am now on a mission, a mission for an overhead projector. i lock the door and return the keys. i overhear the principal remarking to the secretary that the toilet had been running all day saturday and the maintenance guys didn't come. (i believe she realized it was still running sometime sunday.) i am given my own key. woohoo! i go to the "media center." (i think it's called that since it doesn't have enough books to be called a library. other than several different newspapers, i didn't see any other types of media. ) locked. i head back to the office where i'm told to go to the media center. after several misses i finally find it unlocked but deserted. i find three projectors but none with the little device to wheel a roll of film. alas. eventually the median (centerian ?) returns, and i now officially have an overhead projector and cart. too bad it's on the first floor and there are no elevators.

i lug it up the stairs and push it to my room. it's unlocked. the custodian got around to it. i set up my new toy. everything's good to go except it won't turn on. there's only one outlet in the front of the room. the overhead works in the other two outlets (back left and back right of the room). i have never tried the outlet before. i don't know if it normally works. i ask other teachers if the outlet in the same position in their room works. theirs did not. we turn to the infamous breaker box. fellow teacher tries several breakers to no avail. i'm now rather perturbed. i eventually find the problem - it was a breaker afterall (#20). now i have power and an overhead - just nothing to write on. i return to the office.

there i am led to a storeroom where i grab some dry erase markers, overhead film, and overhead markers. i repeat my request for another whiteboard for the room - preferably not two whiteboards with a wooden divider about 3 inches thick (how stupid.) when she realizes i have one whiteboard already, the request is met with a questioning look. i'm told i'll have to fill out some extra form and try to explain why this would be needed. principal seems to have my back though. back to the hangout.

i have planning first period. it's a good thing right now at least. the substitute who's been "teaching" wasn't even there last friday. i'm not exactly sure where they are in the book. after doing some weekend planning, i'd think those in algebra 1a should be at least finishing chapter 2 - more preferably - into chapter 3. rifiling through some more papers, it seems they've yet to finish chapter 1. i try to figure out what i'm to be doing and make some guidelines on an overhead. this is good since before i know it...

it's time for my first class. the students come in and notice the room has been cleaned and rearranged. i overhear one student remark "it's like a real classroom in here." despite the arranged desks, the students all head to the back of the room where there are chairs arranged around a table. with considerable effort, i manage to get everyone into desks. here goes.

i introduce myself. (no ms. _____ won't be back.) i mention some brief expectations - pretty much effort. i mention there will be a seating chart. i then pass back packets that review most of chapter 1 and put some problems on the board. class was quiet and productive. if it wasn't complete, it was due wed for hw. (at this point, 180 mins of classtime had been spent on this packet.) there is one student who is not in the same class as everyone else. i don't feel like he's being adequately served.

next class - 3rd period. planned a similar class. didn't get it. more of a struggle getting students in the seats. it's clear there are are some strong personalities in this period. there are also 3 different classes. as i try to teach, i'm interrupted and interrogated. i'm not sure when it was commonplace for students to ask their teacher if he drank. several have their heads down and react angrily or are unresponsive when i attempt to rouse them. then things get fun. in the middle of the period lunch is served. really. 20 mins in the middle of a class, they have lunch. i'm not sure how this works when there's a test. i'm thinking i'll give two parts. one due before lunch, one due after.

there was a reception for new teachers in the media center held during the lunch periods. lots of good food. i get a plateful and then get a piece of cake. the lunchroom is very sparse during this lunch period. (i guess they realized dividing up a class period is not a good idea.) when it's time for class to begin again, the other teachers don't move. i eventually take my uneaten piece of cake and return to the classroom. i thought it best to get there early and unlock the door. i covered the piece of cake wiht a napkin and put it in a small little footlocker contraption. students do not arrive. about 15 minutes later, the most "active" student arrives all proud that he's found a way to show up late. it was fun watching his reaction when he realized he was the first student in the classroom. most of the girls are all in the bathroom; several others are elsewhere. i believe smoking in an empty room or something.

eventually, i get a few students to return to the classroom. this is where my hardheadedness becomes an asset. i teach hardcore for rest of the period. it's not like were actually learning, but i think they at least realized i wasn't going anywhere. one student kept saying if i wanted to know what they knew, i should just look at some quiz they'd taken. blah blah. i told them they'd have a quiz and made packets due wednesday (same with previous class, they'd now had 180 mins of classtime.) eventually that class was over.

i felt like i needed a cutman. the next period i'm to have 3 students in what was described to me as a largely self-directed class (actually 2 classes). i had one student. she expected to sleep. however, it seemed she did like working once i got her to work problems at the board, etc. i figure if i can't get one student motivated when she's got no one to distract her, i really should do something else.

after school, i worked on trying to get things ready for wed. i also tried to get my groupwise account set up. here i got to have my first known run-in with school politics. as the account was being setup, i was asked for my email address. i was told it was for things like if someone signs up for a workshop. i said "that's poor." i mean c'mon. that's the whole purpose of groupwise. the lady seemed stunned. i knew i'd emailed principals (one out of two worked) and received several business cards with email addresses at the bottom. she said that they allowed email for the principals. i knew they used to have email addresses. she said that it started costing money to provide them. she said the county school policy was for teachers to sign up for yahoo accounts. i once again stressed that it was rather unprofessional and that i guess i was used to wake county. she responds with obvious vitirol about how they have many things that wake doesn't have. i'm thinking...yeah, windows 95 on all the computers. she then said something about her sister being involved with it for the county and that she'd have to leave since she was getting upset. i can control my voice, and i chose my words carefully. i found this rather childish. (no i didn't express such.) she then said something about contacting some head it guy if i had any questions. i said i would since i had some questions about the website. she seemed absolutely shocked. i mentioned that i wondered when the new one would go live. (i'd discovered what appears to be a partially completed site on the intranet.). i also was wondering about if school sites would now have the same template as the main site. she starts talking about how i'm totally wrong and she's in charge of the school's page and that all schools do their own and it's totally separate and that she hasn't done the one for the school since she was waiting for all the teachers, etc but that when she's done she'll send over the disk with the website. she talks about how it's been a low priority and that they're moving the schools over to frontpage from netscape gold. i asked her if they had ftp access. she didn't respond - was clear she didn't know what i was talking about. i then show her the one on the intranet. it does seem that the schools will now have the same template. "well they haven't told us anything about that." no kidding. also she never got my groupwise account working. oh well.

i threw out my now ant-covered slice of cake. went home. crashed on the couch. wrote up a certain quiz. worked on some lesson plans. eventually went to sleep around 2.

two things

2003-09-02T13:34:00.000-04:00

i don't want to buy a maxi-pad - wake county has emergency kits for each classroom teacher. i don't believe there's anything similar in my classroom. i'm considering making one.
oh and i went ahead and ordered the hammacher schlemmer alarm clock. i'm so excited. i'm so excited. i'm so...scared.

i'm not a morning person.

2003-09-01T13:32:00.000-04:00

i've never been one. i now have to be at work at 7:30 every morn looking presentable. this isn't a good combination. i've been trying to make myself get up earlier to prepare. it's not working too well. i have no windows in my bedroom. i think this is partially responsible. i'm now looking for an alarm clock that turns on a light progressively brighter to aid in waking me up. i found many clocks which use them, but i am not interested in waking up to a strobe light and have not linked to them.

i've found a couple. if you know of others/better. comment away.

cheap coffee - no not thrown in my face. surprisingly to me hammacher schlemmer has the cheapest alarm clock i've found. it also has an aromatherapy feature which lets you wake up or fall asleep to different aromas - like coffee. it's still not cheap at $50 plus shipping. (along with the must have popup hotdog cooker, they also have all-terrain skis on sale!)
not so sad - these folks have lots of products to let the sunshine in. all quite expensive.
another common clock - this one uses your own tablelamp to provide lighting. still not cheap.
awake. check. worship ra. check - these folks sell a more eye catching clock. don't miss the fake windows below on the same page! i think i'd have to choose hawaii. maybe kate could send some digital pics of some other vistas.
good price - well not really a good price, but one of the best i've found for the ever-popular glowslug clock.
under a franklin - here's a glowdome alarm clock just under a $100.

Friday

2003-08-29T13:31:00.000-04:00

i woke up early in order to meet with the substitute who's been filling in until someone was hired. just wasn't happening. i eventually leave around 9 for the ss folks. i get a printout that says. yup. this guy's is who he says he is. i find it pretty funny. it's not like it'd be hard to fake - i guess the generic stamp is supposed to prevent that. i take it to the benefits people. despite their fellow office personnel being the ones who instructed me to get this paper, it's looked at with disdain, and i'm informed that i'll still need my card. i tell her that it should arrive in about a week. she makes this big public declaration that she's going to write this on the paper and does so with considerable flourish. i've had enough and leave. i realize later that i neglected to talk to the guy who hired me. as i'm lateral entry, i need to pay an $85 application fee. as previously noted, i'm broke. i'd talked to pops (he's out of the country. moms is up north as well). after some phone tag, he said i could use his mastercard and gave me the number. oh well. i guess i'll get around to it sometime.

i had a headache and went home. i wanted to head out to the school around when the school day was over to find out if i was teaching tuesay or doing orientation. i also wanted to set up the room, find out where the copiers, overhead projector, etc are located, bring home a few copies of the books, lesson plans, and other items in order to prepare. i lie down on the couch hoping to take a quick nap. 2 hours later, i wake up. i end up arriving at the school and the only car there is the principal's. she lets me in. i ask if i'm teaching tuesday or doing orientation. she laughs rather heartily. "you're teaching." she unlocks the door to my room and shows me where the breaker box is located. oh - the breaker box is not in the classroom. it's in the down the hallway. how convenient.

she mentions that labeling the breakers is a job for that weekend. there are no light switches in the rooms. if you want to turn off the lights...to, i don't know say you an overhead projector to teach, you need to flip the breaker. i need to find out if this shuts off the power to the computers as i suspect. i quickly determine that the air conditioning is not running. i ask about getting some more white boards (phrased it differently this time), she says that will be fine and that it'll take about a week. (we'll see.) there two overhead fans, but i soon realize they are not on the same breaker as the lights. i eventually get them powered. however as i'm moving desks, tables, filing cabinets, books, etc on a hot day without ac, i'm drenched. principal returns and says that she's leaving but will return later to set the alarm. i just need to close the doors behind me.

i continue arranging the room and digging through boxes and storage trying to find materials and arrange them. i was still feeling kinda sick so i started looking for a bathroom. i found a staff bathroom. i used it. i flushed. water poured out quite strongly. i started washing my hands. i realized it wasn't stopping. i'm the only one in the building. it's 5:24 pm on the friday of labor day weekend. i jiggle the handle. i continue doing so. to no avail. the principal mentioned that she'd return later that night to set the alarm. i keep checking. no change. she told me she was leaving to go to a retirement home. but i figured it can't hurt so i eventually look up her phone number (thanks google). i first talk to someone who sounded much older who repeatedly called for her a few minutes later she came on the line. after determining it was her - actually i asked if she was the principal and the person just said yes - i told her the situation. she said it'll do that now and then "especially if they're working on the lines" (i find this incredible - water was shooting out of the toilet) and if jiggling the handle doesn't work, it should shut off soon. she did mention that she'd call maintenance anyway. i left an hour later with no change to the situation. at the rate the water was flowing, thousands of gallons will be used before tuesday if nothing is fixed. i didn't have a key to a back room which is where i'd think a water cut off value was likely located.

i didn't see a water shut off valve, but i didn't look as hard as i could have and probably should have. as long as i really talked to the principal, i tend to think it's her responsibility now. if she does show up this weekend and nothing's changed, she'll at least be able to do something about it. i don't have any keys.

my first day is tuesday.

2003-08-28T03:40:00.000-04:00

i spent today getting hired and filling out forms. i'm sure they're tired of me since i at least attempted to read the forms. lady was like - this form says i did my job. in fact it had a list of things that i said i was informed about. that's protecting them - not me. i refused to sign it in advance. however i realized later i made a dumb mistake. it had a long list of things and she'd put checks next to everything she'd discussed. i reviewed it and i signed it. however i didn't mark out all the spaces next to items she had not discussed. there was nothing keeping her from filling in the rest of them. dumb.

i learn that i'm to receive 10 days of orientation/training. it's just not known when this will take place. the guy that hired me asked when i was starting. i didn't know. he said he'd check with the principal. he comes in when i'm meeting with benefits lady and says she says next week is fine. i say okay. he says monday will be your first day. i'm fine with that. benefits lady says, but that's labor day. i say so what. he's like, okay tuesday. i'm like, why not sunday? she gets snippy and says "i just heard him say tuesday so september 2." if it was sunday, my benefits and stuff would all kick in september 1 instead of october 1. i'm going to be rather pissed if i get sick in september or if they pro rate my salary since i didn't work october 1.

one of the forms required was for direct deposit. i did not want to direct deposit into my checking account (no interest and i'm likely going to close my account with that bank). i was considering this and discussing this with koala; he might have first mentioned the state employees' credit union. the credit union of course makes perfect sense. after reviewing the options, i was sold. i called to find out if i could sign up since i was just hired that day. i was told that'd be no problem; they could just call and verify this. i eventually get in an office and the credit union employee started the process. she started trying to get me signed up for savings and checking. i did not want checking. checking has a $1/month fee and a minimum $100 balance. savings is required to participate, and there's a $25 min balance with no fee. i have $33 in my checking account and like $15 in cash. i was not signing up for anything with a $100 min balance. i tell her i want savings and will use it for direct deposit. we're now getting somewhere. however when she goes to verify me, trouble starts. i'm not in the computer (of course not - i was just hired and have yet to turn in a couple of forms...like the direct deposit form). i realize the business cards of the person who hired me and the benefits person were not in my folder. i rush out to the car and do no find them. however as i'm returning, i see them laying on the sidewalk.

i return with the cards thinking i now have phone numbers of people who can say i'm an employee. first guy not there. second person (with whom i'd spent like 2 hours that day) transfers the call to someone else to verify employment. that person of course cannot. i tell the credit union lady to call her back and say my name and mention i was the person she'd spent 2 hours with that very day. she calls back but only mentions my name. after like a 5 minute wait, something happens and the credit union lady starts filling out a form and eventually hangs up. i ask her if the lady did not remember me. she did not. i found this quite odd. the guy who wouldn't sign all the forms without reading them, who reminded her of her boyfriend, who spent 2 hours with her that day...she does not remember.

so now i'm verified. she needs $25. i say i don't have it on me, but i can go to the bank next door and withdraw from my checking account. she says she'll start working on paperwork in the meantime. i'm back in like 3 mins. i'm fast.

i then head over to the social security administration building trying to get another ss card. despite my trip down memory lane, i never found it. they close at 4. i know old people have plenty of free time, but c'mon if you're in a service industry i'd think closing at 5:30 should be the earliest.

school b

2003-08-27T13:28:00.000-04:00

well i heard from school b. i called to find out if they'd decided. i asked to speak to the principal but was told the principal wasn't available. i asked if they'd decided yet. i was told no and that the principal was still interviewing people. i really need to be employed and i was torn between the two schools. (they are quite different situations making it hard to compare or decide.) so i told them thanks but i was going to pick school a. i then called school a to tell the principal my decision. the principal wasn't there and the person on the phone said she didn't know when he'd be back or if he'd be back that day or if he'd check email, etc. i did not leave a message. soon thereafter i got a phone call. it was the secretary of school b asking if i'd told school a yet. i said no. i was then informed that school b had also recommended me for the position. there goes my easy decision.

i kept trying to figure it out. the principal of school b eventually called and wanted to know what i'd decided. i said i wasn't sure and that i'd call with the decision in the morn. i got a couple of phone numbers for teachers at the school to get their view on things. talked in depth with one new teacher. this morn - bright and early - i called principal b and asked if it'd be okay if i came and observed for the day. she was amenable.

so after an interesting day i went to check out. (my favorite little story was when i was looking around the room which would be mine and was trying to figure out how best to utilize it. it seemed clear that another white board could be useful. i turned to the "substitute" (she's been there 3 years in various positions) and asked "any chance for a white board?" she started to answer and then started laughing. quickly i guessed what she'd heard. she'd thought i said "any chance for a white boy?" she said she was about to respond "i hope so. they need you.") in the office i found out that the school district's hr department was looking for me. i called in but got a machine and left a message. there was a teachers' meeting and i my attendance was requested. i went. afterwards i got up with the hr department. i'm to show tomorrow with my social security card as well as the ss #s, addresses, names of two people who'd be my beneficiaries. this kinda seems like filling out a will.

i can't find my ss card. i've been digging through boxes of papers and kept items. i'm a bit of a pack rat, and this is a rather dangerous trip through memory lane. boarding passes, post cards, poems, pics, notes, bills, keepsakes, etc.

it seems my memory on some things isn't that great. i believe many of the memories recalled require something to prompt them. maybe i'm just repressing them.

decisions

2003-08-26T13:27:00.000-04:00

well, i never heard from school b.

gameplan - tomorrow morn call school b to find out their decision. if yes, decide which school (you'd think i'd do that now). call school a and let them know. then head to hr and get hired. then possibly to school a to "observe." i've been told it'd be unfair to have me take over thursday since other teachers had several weeks to prepare prior to classes. (current teacher leaves thurs.) however, i doubt this situation would last very long. i would think i'd observe the classes i'll be teaching while the teacher is still there. when he leaves, am i to observe a substitute teach my classes or am i to observe other classes while a substitute teaches mine? either way i expect to be teaching in about a week. i also have to start taking courses since i'm doing lateral entry.

i've yet to find out if i'd have my own classroom or i'd be a circuit teacher. i've also not yet found out what equipment/computers to which i'd have access. i could ask tomorrow, but i probably would say yes if they only gave me chalk and a chalkboard so i might as well find out after they commit to employing me.

so now i will have to wake up in the morn, change out of pajamas, keep clean, take classes, and teach classes. i think i'm going to need to find a watering hole.

amenities

2003-08-25T13:26:00.000-04:00

one of the schools called to let me know they are recommending me for the position. still waiting on the other school. i should hear today. i guess i need to make a decision (and start getting dressed every day). either way, i should start being a productive member of society.

in the middle of the night i tend to be very creative in thinking about other opportunites. i started checking out alaska's dept of ed for teaching jobs. i came across the following listing on this site:

Position Number: 1550

Category:
Math/Science/Business/Technical/Vocational

Job Title:
Secondary Science/Generalist - Kipnuk

Deadline:
Open Until Filled

Zone:
3

View the school districts in each zone.

Posted:
8/1/2003

Job Description:
Valid Alaska Type A Teaching certificate required. Housing available, running water.

Salary:

Other:
2003/2004 School Year

Contact Information:
Lower Kuskokwim School District
PO Box 305
Bethel, AK 99559
www.lksd.org

Contact:
Gary Baldwin
907 543-4886 Work Phone
907 543-4900 Fax

it makes me wonder if there's electricity.

meetin

2003-08-21T13:24:00.000-04:00

well, i have two separate meetings scheduled with principals tomorrow before 11. somehow i'll need to fall asleep tonight.

ring ring

2003-08-20T13:23:00.000-04:00

i sent off an email to the principal of one school. instead of a response, i get a lovely email from hotmail.

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipients has been delayed.

principal's email address"

tomorrow, dialogue will occur (even if i have to use a.g bell's dreaded instrument of torture. yes we have one that looks quite like that. ours was from pine plains, ny which was a test area for nyc...so it's darn old.)

turned in app.

2003-08-15T10:35:00.000-04:00

i believe i have a good shot at being a middle school math teacher. i need to call tomorrow to see if the hs positions are filled. there is one at a regular hs and one that's 6-12 and would be more individual instruction. this last one intrigues me. i doubt i'd be teaching calculus (or fractals), but it could be quite rewarding. income would also be good. i wants to visit some folks now that everyone is dispersing. (also i want to catch some acc football.) i'm also trying to get on the substitute list. i think i'd have a really good shot if i wanted to do middle school. for some reason, i've always thought high school and dismissed the middle school option. (i think i just know what's taught in hs and can't remember what one learns in ms.) i've pretty much thought only thought about teaching algebra and above. if they stuck me with advanced students, i'd be able to teach algebra; but i seriously doubt they'd give a newbie advanced students. watched the beginning of conan. he was sitting without makeup, guests or monologue. i wished he'd just have tried to kill time for the whole show by making fun of people. instead he cut to a rerun with marky mark. jimmy kimmel had the guy from friendster. dork. well, there's my life. enjoy it.

glasses still broken.

application

2003-08-14T00:49:00.000-04:00

local public schools need math teachers. no more blogging until i write a couple of essays to finish the application.

if you are starting to get bored, this site is much less pretentious.