“Hold on Cool Breeze, it gets better”

I’m officially taking my first days off since I started this whole teaching thing. That realization is bringing me countless enjoyment. Coupled with that glorious bit of news is the simple fact that it’s payday, and as a result of my vacation days, and the unpredictable weather, I will have a five day weekend starting next Thursday. Can you sense my elation? Makes sticking around town this weekend to grade papers not seem so bad.

I’ve also realized that of the six weeks of school remaining, just about every other weekend is a long weekend (thank you snow days and holidays), so I’ve been counting my days in fortnights. Instead of six weeks, it is three fortnights until I’m free of this place. In all honesty, it isn’t that bad of a place. The people have been plenty nice to me and it is beautiful, outside of the town itself, of course the closer I get to leaving and the happier I feel about it, the less bad this place seems. I think it has more to do with the light at the end of the tunnel than the town however. I am not looking forward to breaking the news to the landlords and board when I do finally have to tell them that I’m not planning on another year-long commitment. Break-ups are never easy, even after only a few months.

This morning, on my way to work, my not-so-4-wheel-drive truck actually skidded out on a cow pie, which, as my students reminded me, is better than the dog and cat variety. I have a new sympathy for the guys who change tires. Seriously no one ever cleans the tread of their tires.

In addition, and prior to the cow pie incident, the sun actually did what we as humans have been asking from it, and warmed the space in my room through my tiny window. The effect was limited however, for even though my room was warm enough to entice me to wear a summer shirt, the outdoor environment was much less pleasant with a frosty windshield and visible frost covering shady surfaces.

Being Friday, the class was reluctant to do any work and I was not in the mood to enforce my usual brand of strict discipline, which looks more like me with frown lines and the look on my face that says something to the effect of “you can’t be serious.” So I decided to utilize my Netflix account yet again as classroom entertainment/education. A few weeks ago I front loaded my overloaded queue with school friendly/inspirational/mildly educational movies. I just happened to have gotten Rabbit Proof Fence in the mail. For those that haven’t seen it, it tells the true story of aboriginal girls who are taken from their families and placed in boarding school as an attempt to “breed” the blackness out of them. The story follows them as they try to escape and return over 1000 miles across the deserts of Australia to get home. I, being the mean teacher, made them write a five sentence paragraph about what they thought. I’d say about half turned them in… but a good number were moved by the flick. At one point, when a boy laughed at the children’s misery, a few other students came down hard on him. And one of my students, who is difficult to get to buy in, actually had a few significant thoughts and feelings about the story. It seems that he, and his family, have participated in the long distance walk to the valley in memory of the Indians that were forced to walk here as a form of relocation back around the turn of the century (20th century that is), so this film was a little closer to home than the average 13 year old.

I was told today by my co-worker that I should have a stand-up comedy show just to share the looks that I get on a daily basis form my students. The gist of this afterschool complaint session was centered around one student, who, after I told her to stop pouting when I asked her to finish putting the desks back said, “you haven’t even seen pouting.” My oh so inappropriate retort was, “Actually I have. I used to teach first grade.” And my added response when asked how I liked it was, “It actually wasn’t all that different from this.” What I failed to express was that my first grade students were better listeners, better behaved, had a more extensive and appropriate vocabulary, and had not yet mastered lying and the art of eye rolling. This of course comes after two of my students tried to steal prizes (namely candy) from my prize closet to the tune of “aren’t we so funny.” I’ve learned that they either think I’m stupid, don’t have any idea about teenage life/mood swings, or it honestly doesn’t matter what they do because no one can actually do anything about it. The latter of which I think they are far too young to be realizing…

After school, the “parent meeting” to discuss graduation, fund raising and field trips took place. A whopping total of three parents showed up, and not so surprisingly, were the parents of the three kids who put on the event. After an hour we decided on a graduation date and time, still working on the place, and a rough plan for fund raising. They have no goal in mind, nor a field trip in mind, but at least they’ll be making money. My Girl Scout event planning friends would be arguably disappointed in me. In my defense of the feeble meeting and disorganization is that I maintain that a field trip to an amusement park is not appropriate for a school trip, I don’t trust my children on school grounds more or less in public, and with only six weeks left, we are a bit shy on time to start planning a trip. I’ll keep you posted as this whole thing pans out. I’m hoping to be able to avoid it all together as time runs out on them.

When I got home, I was greeted by my boss… remember the Chairman? He was helping to clean up the yard and moving the living lawnmowers into the “junkyard” to take care of some of the overgrown grass. Seems he also needed to give me an evaluation. He brought his beer (by this time he’d already had at least two by my witness) and I joined him at the picnic table while he wrote about my teaching style, which he has never observed. I gave myself a B grade on my yard duty responsibilities, and as for the remaining 10+ categories I got an A. Guess he thinks I’m doing a pretty good job. I took his almost three-year-old son for a little walk and remembered that little kids can be fun, in moderation. This kid is a little cowboy through and through. Barefoot, dirty smudge face and all. His love for condiments is something to be feared or admired, and I am seriously considering suggesting to his mother that she dress him in waterproof clothing so that he can just be hosed down at regular intervals.

Seeing as I have a sub next week, and my class has literally scared away EVERY sub in town, I’m trying to create bomb proof lessons for the one sub I finally convinced to “give them another shot.” Part of my plan was to have them watch a movie (it’s a nice back-up plan… we watch a lot of movies) and take thoughtful notes on them. I was thinking the Outsiders. I could read them the book (because we don’t have class sets of anything) and then they could watch the movie and compare it to the book. Then my Netflix movie #2 showed up. The Power of One: a story of Apartheid, an orphan and boxing. I’ve seen the movie (back in high school history class) and I’ve read and LOVED the book. So for my exciting Friday night I watched the movie and created 20 or so questions relating to movie comprehension and character development. The question now is, do I try a new system like having them fill out a three page movie handout for the first time with a sub, or just give them the Outsiders (which we haven’t been able to read) and have them take a handful of notes. Whenever I get grand ideas it usually backfires on me and yet I keep trying…

Postcards of the week:

Mt Fuji
1. Looks like a volcano
2. Must be on an island
3. Is not on Hawaii
4. (with considerable hints) Is on the Island of Japan
5. Is near Tokyo which according to our history lessons used to be called Edu
6. (They don’t believe me but) I Have no idea who the send it. However, thank you Karen!

New Zealand:
1. Has Hawaiian looking natives
2. They tattoo their faces
3. They aren’t cannibals
4. Is an Island in the Pacific (err… many islands)
5. Is actually quite easy to find on the map once you stop looking for minute islands throughout the Pacific Ocean
6. A place where they play rugby and chant the Haka
7. Is another place their teacher used to live
8. Has a national bird that reminds them of the flightless Dodo which we learned about in Language Arts class. (sorry Brook)

(Woo hoo not only are postcards a lesson in Geography, but the kids are actually relating them to things they've learned in class! I guess they are learning something!)



Authors note: I’ve been entertaining myself with the now-on-DVD TV show Freaks and Geeks, and now that my DVD player is fixed I’ve finally finished the far too short season. So to entertain myself and show tribute, all of today’s quotes are compliments of the Freaks and Geeks writers.

“Fine I’ll be a dwarf. But my name is Carlos.”