Rambling. Like I do anything else!
I remember why I was putting off mowing my mom's lawn. Wet grass + lawn mower = hard work. I'm saving the back yard for another day.
My observations by new teachers (that I never mentioned here) went well. Sherry looked really happy with me when she left and I'm betting if I bothered to check my work email, I would find a nice email from her. I'll probably do that later.
I had a small incident in 6th period. Matthew was getting frustrated during a game of Jeopardy, but I didn't see how frustrated he was getting. The last question was, "What is the name of the calf muscle?" (Answer: gastrocnemius) Matthew answered, "Hamstring" and a few people laughed. He picked up his backpack and made to throw it at the head of James, who had laughed. I intervened and got over to him and tried to calm him down. He was standing up, his hands like claws and practically foaming at the mouth. He kept repeating over and over, "I hate being laughed at!" Then the bell rang and everyone practically ran out of the room. I kept talking to Matthew, trying to get him to calm down and breathe. He started crying, more out of rage than anything else, I'm guessing. I got him to sit down and relax a bit and then took him over to the counselor to set up some appointments for him.
I think it's more freaky to have a generally calm kid freak out like that than a kid who looks like they are ready to blow all the time. Matthew has some anger issues, but I've never seen anything like that.
Grades are due April 7th. I've got at least three boxes of grading to get done. My goal for tonight is to get 90% of all of math and science graded and all of the vocabulary for social studies done. If I manage that, then I will have mostly social studies notes to grade... until tomorrow when I start grading all of the science journals. (yuck.) Somedays, I want a job that I don't take home every night. But! I do get paid for talking about interesting things, so that's pretty cool. Yesterday, my 2nd period science class had an interesting discussion about philosophy. We did the "what came first, the chicken or the egg" and "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it..." questions. They are always so interested in things. This class, moreso than any of my other classes, has so much curiousity. I've had 20 minute long discussions on space, vaccuum, and the properties of the sun (which is not sometimes we teach in 7th grade). I really like them. They are the beacon of light in the gloominess of the rest of my day. (It's actually getting better.. that just sounded poetic an' stuff!)
Right. So, grading.
My observations by new teachers (that I never mentioned here) went well. Sherry looked really happy with me when she left and I'm betting if I bothered to check my work email, I would find a nice email from her. I'll probably do that later.
I had a small incident in 6th period. Matthew was getting frustrated during a game of Jeopardy, but I didn't see how frustrated he was getting. The last question was, "What is the name of the calf muscle?" (Answer: gastrocnemius) Matthew answered, "Hamstring" and a few people laughed. He picked up his backpack and made to throw it at the head of James, who had laughed. I intervened and got over to him and tried to calm him down. He was standing up, his hands like claws and practically foaming at the mouth. He kept repeating over and over, "I hate being laughed at!" Then the bell rang and everyone practically ran out of the room. I kept talking to Matthew, trying to get him to calm down and breathe. He started crying, more out of rage than anything else, I'm guessing. I got him to sit down and relax a bit and then took him over to the counselor to set up some appointments for him.
I think it's more freaky to have a generally calm kid freak out like that than a kid who looks like they are ready to blow all the time. Matthew has some anger issues, but I've never seen anything like that.
Grades are due April 7th. I've got at least three boxes of grading to get done. My goal for tonight is to get 90% of all of math and science graded and all of the vocabulary for social studies done. If I manage that, then I will have mostly social studies notes to grade... until tomorrow when I start grading all of the science journals. (yuck.) Somedays, I want a job that I don't take home every night. But! I do get paid for talking about interesting things, so that's pretty cool. Yesterday, my 2nd period science class had an interesting discussion about philosophy. We did the "what came first, the chicken or the egg" and "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it..." questions. They are always so interested in things. This class, moreso than any of my other classes, has so much curiousity. I've had 20 minute long discussions on space, vaccuum, and the properties of the sun (which is not sometimes we teach in 7th grade). I really like them. They are the beacon of light in the gloominess of the rest of my day. (It's actually getting better.. that just sounded poetic an' stuff!)
Right. So, grading.