rollercoaster

I taught every single class period today. We got off to a bit of a rocky start in 2nd hour as I forgot to go over the worksheets from the day before at the beginning of class, but all's well that ends well. Thankfully 2nd hour is relatively well mannered (mostly because they haven't had time to wake up yet, I think). Overall it went well. The classes were participatory which was phenomenal. 4th hour didn't get near as far as we should have and so we will have some ground to make up tomorrow. They got a bit sidetracked during discussion, which was my fault for not bringing them back to where we needed to be. It is just too hard to turn down all of those enthusiastic hands in the air!

We talked about how the movement of people from place to place can impact us here in Nebraska. Naturally we talked about individuals bringing H1N1 to the U.S. from Mexico and how the mislabeling of it as "Swine Flu" negatively impacted the hog market, which effects farmers in Iowa and Nebraska, which in turn effects the economy, their parents jobs, etc. And they led the conversation. Each class talked about a different aspect of how things that happen in a different country have direct implications here in the middle of the country. It was great! (insert: "woman, you're a nerd" here)

5th hour was awesome today! Great discussion, great behavior, and it left me feeling good about the first half of the day. One of the girls who is usually pretty loud and disruptive showed her true colors today---she has a great head on her shoulders and is actually pretty intelligent. I just need to figure out how to get her to harness all of her energy toward her education. Some kids have never been told that you should be proud of being smart.

I do feel, however, that my optimism may be short lived. One of the loud leaders in the class was gone today. I feel like his absence helped the class to remain at a really manageable level. Cross your fingers that an email home to his mother will help the situation a little bit. When we met her at the orientation night she seemed like an involved parent; always a plus.

8th grade wasn't too in depth. They had class time to work on their projects that are due on Friday, so there wasn't too much actual teaching involved. Just a bit at the beginning. 6th hour is a bunch of hooligans so they took a bit more to get going. They are an extremely opinionated group of kids--which is awesome-- but they are also loud, shout out answers instead of raising their hands, a bit disrespectful towards other classmates, and generally just unruly. So their negatives and positives balance each other out. My CT and I just need to start cracking down on discussion and making sure that it moves in the correct direction, which it doesn't always do.

Overall, it was a good day. I'm excited to go back tomorrow. I'll probably teach all of the 7th grade classes again as I have started to plan a lot of what we are doing (based off of already made lesson plans). One girl may be in ISS already. We aren't too sure. She got in a fight yesterday at lunch and 'word on the street' is that she may have gotten in another one today. Get a grip, girl!

Oh the joys of public education.

"Teachers are people who start things they never see finished, and for which they never get thanks until it is too late. " -Max Forman