Whirl, whirl, whirl.

Tomorrow is the first full day of school with all our students.  The schedule is a bit weird as we're spending two hours in the morning with our homeroom going over and training the kids in the School Wide Positive Behavior Support (hereby known as SWPBS) system (for the next three days).  Fortunately all of my kids were here last year so it will be more of a refresher for them, although we did tweak it a bit.  What this also means is that I'll only have 30 minutes for each of my class periods.

Which isn't much...barely enough time to hand out all the paperwork for science class and get attendance done.

And I also discovered, yet again, one of the huge disadvantages of being at the beginning of the alphabet.  My first two observations will be next week.  (We have a new state-wide observation system where ALL teachers get observed at least four times a year.)  I'll barely know my kids' names by then.

Sigh.

I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel already.

Time to Recuperate

Fall Break has finally arrived.  And I finally had a chance to get a good night's sleep and managed twelve hours.  Can you say that we're exhausted?  Pretty much so.  Don't know exactly what it is, but everyone at The School has commented on the fact that we all feel physically and emotionally like we usually do in May, at the end of the year.   I have my suspicions on the cause - more and more paperwork coming down from The State and the District (aka more BS we have to do other than teaching), more testing of the kids (aka time out of my calendar that I could use to teach), bigger class sizes, even less parent involved (every year it gets worse), and goodness knows what else.

We are tired.  And it's only October.

Ever Have One of Those Weeks?

Coming back from Spring Break seemed tougher than usual this year.

Perhaps it's because we have The Class From Hell, and needed more than a week to recover from the exhaustion most of us have been wading through the past month. The fact that the weather has been hot, cold, hot, cold, and just can't make up its mind hasn't helped any. And knowing that the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test is right around the corner hasn't helped either.

Monday morning it seemed like the whole team had something wrong. Mrs. Social Studies and I both had headaches and neither of us could get in the swing of things. Miss Reading was losing her voice, Mr. Math had no sleep due to a late flight and a 2 year old, and Ms. Language was turning green at various times. I don't think any of us really felt well until Thursday rolled around.

So of course this would be the week that I had something scheduled for nearly every single evening. Monday an event at the local University that hubby and I attended which was very nice and over in time to catch 24. Tuesday my college girlfriend came in from California (she's doing a road trip through the South in conjunction with a convention in Atlanta) so we did BBQ and gossiped way too late in the evening. Wednesday is Knit Night with my local knitting group. Thursday, hubby and I went and saw the documentary Brothers At War (highly recommend it). And today I'm off for Good Friday but I've spent most of the day in the basement as we're having severe weather with sirens going off and all sorts of goofy things.

So I may was well grade papers while the storms rage.

However, a few things to note.

Remember Bully Boy? The kid we suffered through for five months, then he moved, then he was back (and put on another team praise Mr. Enforcer)? Apparently his mother up and moved yet again during break and he is now supposedly somewhere in North Carolina. He's another one of those kids who never stays long enough anywhere to get any help whatsoever.

And then there's Drool Boy. Drool Boy was moved to our team because his mother thought it would be a good idea if he was on the same team our basketball coach taught on since Drool Boy wanted to play basketball. Problem is, Drool Boy may have, at best, a 50% average and isn't going anywhere near sports until he learns to wake up in class, do work, and actually care about something other than his gang-banging friends. Of course Mom is now unable to meet with us, answer the phone, or generally communicate with us about the fact that her offspring is running with a bad crowd and failing yet again. The kid is capable but, like Spicoli Boy and Stoner Boy, I suspect he's smoking something funny every morning. Hence the name Drool Boy which comes from Ms. Language who swears that he's going to drool on his desk one day since his mouth is dropping open so wide.

So the other day Drool Boy is in class and I'm reviewing elements, compounds and mixtures and I notice that Drool Boy is there with his hand in the air after I asked the class a question. A miracle! He's participating! I call on him and he blinks. Now this kid has some pretty slow reaction time, so after a minute I call on him again because his hand is still in the air. He blinks some more.

"Hum, Drool Boy, your hand is in the air," I say. "I'm guessing you want to answer the question."

Drool Boy blinks, slowly swivels his head to look up at his hand that's waving above his head, seems startled to see that, yes, that is his hand there, then slowly lowers it.

"I didn't know it was there," he mumbles.

Ah. Guess he didn't want to answer the question.

You can't make this stuff up. You honestly can't.

All I Want is a Good Night's Sleep

I never seem to get enough sleep. This isn't anything new. There's just never enough hours in the day to do all the things I need - and want - to do. There's school, but after that, there's the gym, the errands that need to be run (allergy shots, the market, trips to the post office, the chiropractor, etc), then on home for supper which I make, we eat, and I clean up. Then laundry, checking email (and hopefully blogging) and grading papers and cleaning house and on and on and on. If I'm lucky I can get some reading in and some knitting as well.

And I don't even have my own kids, or it would be worse.

One of my students today said he was doing a survey of what video game system each of his teachers owned and wanted to know which one I had.

"None," I said. "We don't have one."

The whole class gasped in shock. What? Someone without a video game system?

"Really? Not one?"

"Not one," I replied.

"What do you do?" he asked again. The kids all looked at me, wide-eyed. Really? What does one do without video games?

"Oh, I run errands. I cook dinner. I do laundry, I play with my cats, I talk with my husband, I read (this brought some looks of sheer horror to some of their faces), I watch movies, or the news, or History Channel, I knit, I do all sorts of things."

And as I said this, I realized that if I didn't have so darn much to do, it would, just maybe, be possible to get something like eight hours' sleep at night. A video game system would just cut into precious sleep time.

And I need my sleep time.

It seems that most of The Team, as well as most of the other Seventh Grade Teachers are suffering from sleep deprivation this week. Part of it is coming back off two glorious weeks where we could, for the most part, sleep all we want. I celebrated by taking naps on the couch with a warm cat or two for company. It was delightful. However, now we're back here at school, with most of us getting up at 5:00 am or so, and our minds are now fully engaged with all the drama and pathos that is Middle School.

Which is why, we discovered, most of us are waking up in the middle of the night and find that we can't go back to sleep.

For the past three nights I've awakened around 2:30 or 3:00 am and found that I can't go back to sleep. My mind just won't shut off. I try not to think of anything outside of pleasant sleepy thoughts, but my mind drifts off to thinking about an upcoming lesson, how we're going to handle our homework slackers this semester, things I need to do for a team meeting, and on and on.

And I'm still awake when the alarm goes off.

Sigh.

When is spring break?

What should I do with all this free time?

Nothing frosts my cookies more than hearing some nitwit going on about all the free time teachers have. I need to avoid reading the comments section in the on-line version of our local newspaper because it seems to be a cesspool of nothing but ignorant whiners who do nothing but aggravate my already frazzled nerves.

My favorite this week was someone who was whining about what a great gig teachers have because "they only work nine months out of the year while everyone else works twelve."

This twit obviously didn't do well in math because the last I looked, getting out the end of May, and starting the first of August, leaves June and July and I can assure you that that is TWO months, not three. And a lot of that is filled with in-service workshops and other things that we do to maintain our licenses along with finding ways to teach the offspring of the above-mentioned whiners. These people who complain about how teachers have summers off would be the same folks who would have a nuclear poop if anyone even suggested year-round school. The irony is amazing. Their kids need summers off, but teachers should not have summers off.

I love this kind of logic.

The other one that gets me is how people insist that our job is so easy because we get off at 2:30 and have all afternoon and evening to sit around and eat bon-bons and get pedicures. I wish.

Here's what this week looked like:

Monday - arrive at 6:15 am, leave at 5:15 pm. It was the first full day so I don't have too much paperwork to go over. Did spend about an hour checking off returned paperwork (the two pounds of "mandatory" paperwork we foist on kids the first day of school) for my homeroom.

Tuesday - arrive at 6:15 am, leave at 5:00 pm. Go to the market, buy groceries, go home and sling hot dogs and tomato soup at hubster for supper (good thing he actually likes this kind of meal). Spend two hours going over returned science lab rules, make parent phone calls, and set up file folders.

Wednesday - arrive at 6:15 am, leave at 4:45 pm. Run more errands (shoe repair, bank, etc.). Sling pizza at hubster for supper. Spend two hours grading health class papers and four classes of science class safety worksheets. Make some parent phone calls. Fall asleep on sofa.

Thursday - arrive at 6:15 am, leave at 4:00 only because I have allergy shot appointment at 4:30. Get home around 5:30, make quick supper for myself, as hubster won't be home until after 7:00, then make parent phone calls for two hours. Heat hubster up some soup and give him a salad for supper.

Friday - arrive at 6:30 am (after breakfast at Waffle House with Mrs. Eagle), and leave at 5:30 pm. Did not take any work home because the School is open tomorrow morning and I'm going in to work then anyway. Why lug it back and forth?

Saturday - arrive at 9:00 am and leave at 2:00 pm. Finish grading all turned in papers, file them away, set up assignments on new grading program, input grades, work on parent emails, get copies ready for the week, work with Mrs. Eagle on health unit, and then go home. Take no work home because I need to have a weekend.

Take a nap.

If I wasn't on a diet I guess I should be eating my bon-bons, eh?

Hitting the Ground Running

Monday after Spring Break.

Half of my homeroom walks in, put their heads down on their tables, and whine about how they got their sleep patterns all goofed up over break and they were soooooooo tired. Poor babies. That's what happens when you play video games until 3 am and sleep until noon. They weren't going to be able to do anything because they were sooooo tired. They just wanted to curl up and snooze and whine and whimper.

Think again, chickadees.

We have two weeks until the Very Big Deal State Mandated Tests and it's Review Time!!!!!

Three years ago Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Robin and I decided we needed to come up with a good overall review to get our kids ready for the Very Big Deal State Mandated Tests. What we came up with was a ten day plan where we covered everything in warp speed, had the kids doing mini-labs, taking quick notes, doing mini-quizzes, and basically moving so fast they couldn't see straight.

That was when we had a 55 minute period.

We have a 45 minute period now.

Any guesses on how fast we're going now?

I laid down the law...We don't have time for goof-offs, we don't have time for distractions, you don't have time to stare into space, you don't have time to mess with your neighbor...the only thing you need to do is listen, follow directions as fast as you can and pay attention to what I'm doing on the document reader.

I said it so fast even my head spun.

They looked like somebody had hit them with a stun gun.

Now my classes are pretty fast paced and busy to start with. I'm not a lecture and take notes sort of teacher. My kids are used to doing a lot of work with their hands, making foldables (Bless you Dinah Zike), doing labs, and the like, but this surprised even them.

For example..."Okay, now put your homework in your binder in the homework section and while you're at it, pull out a piece of notebook paper and get it set up like you see here on the document reader. When you're done with this, answer the four questions on sexual and asexual reproduction on the mini-quiz. We'll go over them in three minutes."

After a brief pause where you could almost see them think, "Is she serious?", the binders flew, paper came flying out, heads were staring at the screen, and hands were rapidly flying as they begin answering their quiz questions. Even better, they were so busy they were quiet.

We ended two seconds before the bell rang.

They looked exhausted.

And this was only the beginning!

Why I Love My Basement

If you haven't been living under a rock, you may have heard that we've had some pretty nasty weather down here in my beloved South. It has been, in a word, wild.

Due to Super Tuesday, the schools in our district were closed for students, but faculty and staff reported for an in-service. As far as in-service days go, this one was actually quite worthwhile as we had a very detailed presentation on gang awareness as well as some information on new special education laws. However, many of us were heard to mutter "Glad the kids aren't here as the weather will probably get nasty." We will remember our earlier run-in with bad weather in January, and I don't think any of us wanted to get stuck at school with our kids during a tornado. The fact of the matter was that it's just been too warm for February. We hit a record high of 72 degrees on Tuesday, and when it's that high this time of year, you know that cold weather is just around the corner. And when cold fronts and warm air hit, you get bad weather.

And man, did we get bad weather.

I was trying to watch the hockey game that evening when it started up. First, lots of wind. Lots and lots of wind. Then lightning, thunder, and heavy, heavy rain. I have a NOAA weather radio and it was beeping alerts every few minutes. The hockey game I was trying to watch had lost the audio and was intoning that computerized voice that told all of us that bad weather was on the way. (By the way, watching a hockey game without audio is a bit weird.) Around 8:30 I started moving some valuables down to the basement because it was making even me nervous. A few minutes later the sirens went off, so I tucked two cats under my arms and took them downstairs, ran up and got another cat, and then headed down there myself, closing the door behind me.

As an aside, when I had to buy a house down here Mr. Bluebird wasn't able to come down and help. His only request was I get a house with a finished basement because he thought this area had too many tornadoes. That I did, thank goodness.

I spent about 45 minutes down there before the warning expired and I was able to let the cats, who were really annoyed, back upstairs. I didn't, however, move anything else up as I had a feeling we weren't done.

We weren't.

Around midnight the second wave of storms woke me up. It was pounding and the lightning was flashing like a strobe light. I looked out the window and thought, for a moment, that it was foggy outside as I couldn't see the houses across the street clearly. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't fog, it was just really heavy, heavy rain. I went out to the living room to turn on the news to see if we were under a warning when the sirens went off again. (I also managed to buy a house that has a tornado siren at the end of the street - when these things go off, we hear them.)
Grabbed cats and hustled everyone downstairs where I stayed until about one in the morning.

This last round was really bad. The hail was bouncing all over my deck before I headed to the basement and the sirens went on and on and on. Usually they'll sound off about 4 times before they stop, but this time I could hear them going on for a significantly longer time.

Of course, by the time it had all passed I was wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep but I was still awake an hour later when Mr. Bluebird arrived home from his trip back from Ohio. He'd dodged supercells the whole way home, hunkering down in gas stations and truck stops when it got so bad he couldn't drive.

The next day at school the kids were dragging. Many of them told me they'd spent the night sleeping in basements, their closets, or bathrooms. Shreck Boy was exhausted. He'd spent the night in the basement after the roof of their house began to lose shingles and the rain started to come in. Some kids told me about huge trees coming down in their yards, trampolines slinging through the neighborhood and ending up blocks away, and barns crashing down. The western edge of our county got hit really hard by a thunderstorm that destroyed one house and damaged at least 13 more. The tornadoes that ripped through the state, amazingly, rose back up in the air before they got very far within the county and we were spared a lot of the damage other counties are facing.

Last year, during the height of the drought, we didn't have one single tornado warning. This year, so far, we've had the sirens go off three times.

And it's February. Tornado season doesn't really begin until March.

Kind of makes me appreciate the basement.

I'd Like Some Green Hair Please

We had our Fall Festival last night.

I am so freaking tired I can hardly see straight. Still.

Talk about a long day...I arrived at 6:30 am, left at 8:30 pm...and was on my feet most of that time. One thing they don't teach you in Teacher School is that you'll be on your feet a lot and the value of Very Good Shoes.

Anyway...

Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Language, and I, as sponsors of the Chess and Board Game Club, decided we'd run a booth at the Festival which was, amazingly, put together in about two weeks when we found out that the PTO decided they didn't have the manpower or support to do it on their own this year. The Jr. Civitan club and Student Council stepped up as did a few of the other clubs and even some teachers who aren't club sponsors. (For example, our new Miss Reading bravely hosted the karaoke booth.) We decided we were going to do the "hair and nail salon" which involved spraying colored spray into kids' hair, using colored gel to make spikes and mohawks, and do weird colored manicures. Kids could buy tickets for fifty cents a piece and go to all sorts of events - cake walk, 2 liter soda pop ring toss (hugely popular), bean bag toss, and more. We also had a craft show and a silent auction for the adults.

The three of us were busy for two solid hours making our students look even stranger than they normally are. Even at one dollar per "beauty treatment" we had lines 2-3 kids deep waiting to sit down and get beautified. We had boys come and get their nails painted metallic blue and black and then ask for red and blue mohawk spikes. Girls got red, white and blue stripes in their hair, with orange nails and black tips. Want glitter gel in your hair? We got you covered. Green stripes? No problem. Want an all over bright pink spray? Sit down and we'll take care of you.

Amazing what middle schoolers like, isn't it?

Maybe that's what makes them so much fun.

Why I'm So Tired I Can't See Straight

It would be nice if a teacher's work day actually ended when the contract says it does. If that were the case I wouldn't be falling asleep in my supper. Truth be told, this has just been the week from hell, in terms of after-school-things-I-must-do.

Let's see....Monday....optional science teacher gathering at Central Office, but Mrs. Eagle and I had to pass because I had to run Hubby's vehicle to the repair shop (she was my ride home). We'll be making the next few, especially in October when we get to hear about our new standards (and they're really changing).

Tuesday...go to Central Office, meet with Mrs. Standard and help edit benchmark tests. That took about two solid hours, but was worthwhile. I was just losing my brain by the time we left and was turning to jelly. Looking at tests can do that to me. Oh, yeah, I have 110 tests to grade this evening because I'm hand grading tests this year (and that's for another blog).

Wednesday...literacy meeting (all academic areas must meet), and Mrs. Eagle and I have to prep for our Thursday lab, plus go get the vehicle, and try not to forget my allergy shot again.

Thursday...Open House. Enough said.

Friday...Mrs. Eagle and I, foolishly, volunteered to work the First Dance of the School Year. Fortunately it is a right-after-school-dance which means I should be home by 5:30 or so.

I think the first chance we'll get to the gym is this weekend. Thank goodness it's a long one.