Changes...Changes..Changes

This new school year is going to be very different than many of my past school years.

I have taught 7th grade for ten years - hard to believe its been that long - and this year I will still be teaching 7th grade.  But I'll have two classes of 6th graders as well.  Our enrollment is just jumping (we've added nearly 300 kids in 3 years) and there are so many 6th graders coming in that The Principal had to add an extra "overflow" teacher.  So, I'll have two 6th grade classes and three 7th grade classes.   I'm considered a 7th grade teacher (The Principal has me work with the 7th grade team at all staff things) and "just helping out" the sixth grade for the year (or two.)  I am cool with this.

I am also cool with the fact that my class sizes are a lot more manageable than last year.  I averaged 154 kids last year which comes to about 32 per class.  This year I'm up to 125 which is about 25 per class.  A huge difference.

I may decide I like 6th grade better.  Who knows?  What I do know is that the 6th grade teachers are not a tight-group like the 7th grade teachers are, so that may be interesting.  I like the way the 7th grade teachers act like a family.

The good part about all this is that after seven years I am no longer a team leader because I am no longer on any one team - I get the "overflow" kids.  Considering I was going to ask The Principal if someone else could have the pleasure of being team leader, I am more than thrilled at this.  Having less responsibility suits me fine, especially after the year I had last year with dealing with being the executrix of my Father's estate.  (That's still going on, btw, and I hope to have most of it done by December.)

I also am in a different room which is bigger than the tiny room I have had for eight years and that's a good thing.  The only real drawback I've found so far is that it is still in the older part of the building and is a little short on electrical outlets so I have 3 extension cords running along the walls which is par for the course in this part of the building.  Especially considering the geniuses who installed all the technology stuff a few years ago didn't put any of that near an outlet which makes it impossible to get power to the technology (doc reader, computer, etc.) without an extension cord.

So, it should be an interesting year.

Summer Ends with Sweet Corn

Mrs. Eagle and I took a little road trip up North last weekend, to visit a good friend of mine, to see her adorable MIL, and so I could do a little talk for a historical group up there.  The fact that people will actually pay me to drive up and talk about the Civil War is a plus - it helps pay, somewhat, for the girls' weekend.

One of the other reasons we went up there was because there is nothing - nothing! - like Ohio sweet corn.  Even the sweet corn down here in My Beloved South does not measure up and I buy from the Amish so you can bet I'm buying from people who know how to grow corn.  Northern sweet corn is just the best.

Mrs. Eagle's little adorable MIL called ahead and placed an order for us with the local grower as he tends to sell out every day and we had five bushels of sweet corn waiting for us on Monday morning.  We sort of thought it would be in those cute bushel baskets, but it was in these huge green woven bags.  Thought was probably a good thing.  We put them in big plastic bags, put some bags of ice in with them, and tossed them in the back of her CRV for the nine hour drive home.

I had ordered 5 dozen ears of corn because, after all, it's just me and Mr. Bluebird to eat it.  However, this grower, being a nice guy, throws in two extra ears for every dozen, so I ended up with 70 ears of corn.

That's a lot of corn.

I spent the better part of a day shucking it, boiling it, letting it cool, then cutting it off the cob, and then packing it into freezer bags.  (My vacuum sealer is probably one of my most useful kitchen devices.)  I ended up with 16 bags of corn which is just about the right amount.

And I saved a few just to eat with supper for the next week.  Mr. Bluebird, swooned.  I swooned.  It was awesome.

However, as much as I love sweet corn it does pretty much signal the end of summer for us.  School starts on Wednesday, August 6, and we report on Monday, August 5th.

Time to savor summer and the sweet corn.

In Service. Yay.

I have three days of in-service starting tomorrow.

So not looking forward to it.  It better be interesting or I'll be in day dream land.

What Has Happened to the Dixon Ticonderoga Pencils?

My gosh.

What is the world coming to?

Crappy pencils aggravate the daylights out of me.  I get tired of kids churning away at the pencil sharpener until they've eaten away at least half a pencil in order to get a decent, sharp point.  Makes me nuts.  A lot of the "cutsey" pencils (and gosh, I'm so done with cute) are absolute junk, made out of recycled paper and wood and won't even last a day.  They are useless.

So, for years, I've bought Dixon Ticonderoga pencils for my students to use on The Very Big Government Mandated Tests, and for Other Important Things that require a #2 pencil.  (For birthdays I give out mechanical pencils although most teachers, as a rule, don't like middle school kids having them - kids have been known to use them to fire straightened out staples at each other with them.)

This year I came to the dreadful conclusion that the Dixon Ticonderoga pencils have obviously changed something because they are, sad to say, just about as crappy as all the rest.

I brought home a big box from school to use in my summer camp and my suspicions were confirmed. They aren't what they used to be.  I would sharpen to a point, only to have a piece of lead you can pull out of the pencil.  Back to the sharpener.  Again, when it was sharpened, all you had to do was tug on the lead and out it would come.  You can even tell when the lead is like this as it seems to almost "bulge" slightly at the point where the lead and wood should connect.

I ended up throwing away about half a dozen pencils.

This is ridiculous.

Whomever changed things over at Dixon, do something!  You've screwed up the best pencil ever.  Now it's just junk, like all the rest.

Now the Relaxing (well, sorta) Begins

Today is the first day since school let out that I completely free.  Nowhere I need to go and nothing in particular I need to do.

I am enjoying every single second.

I went to visit my  mother for two weeks immediately after school was out, came back, did a week of in-services, then a week of summer camp, and this week I have....nothing.

Well, let me rephrase that...nothing with a particular time schedule.

I need to paint my porch and my back deck.  I need to do some serious yard work.  I need to finish up working on my Dad's estate.  That includes going through boxes, sorting, shipping off mementos to relatives, and trying to get the whole thing finished.  I need to really deep clean my house.

And I need to get caught up on my sleep.

Because, dear friend, school starts in five weeks.

It's Called "Camp" for a Reason

I'm spending a week this summer conducting a Civil War Summer Camp for my City's Parks and Recreation Department.  I used to teach a Civil War class at a gifted camp Up North, and always wanted to recreate it for all kids, not just gifted, down here in My Beloved South.  Fortunately, we have a wonderful Civil War park and interpretive center, that's relatively new, and the Powers That Be, asked if I'd put on this camp for them.  (I know the Powers That Be because Mr. Bluebird and I actually worked as historians when developing the museum.)

Well, sure I would.

So, I have a dozen 10 to 11 year old boys (no girls, which is weird because all my classes before were a fairly even mix) this week for a camp that runs in the morning.  The site does not have a classroom, however, so we're meeting outside.  We have the real fort on one side, a view of the river on the other, and we're on a concrete patio that surrounds the building.  We're also under two large canopy tents for protection from the sun.  Water and restrooms are just steps away inside the visitor's center.

Honestly, I've never taught in such a beautiful site.

Apparently the grandmother of one of the boys has taken exception to this.  The manager of the park, who is a wonderful man, told me he got a call complaining that her grandson was spending four hours in the morning - gasp! - OUTSIDE.

Seriously.

Apparently she'd rather have him inside in air conditioned comfort playing video games.

I think one of the biggest problems I see with my students is that they aren't outside enough.  They're soft, and lazy and complain about the slightest bit of discomfort.  They need to get out and burn off some of their normal kid energy - that's a much better solution that slapping a pill down their throat because they're a little hyper.

My husband calls it the "pussification" of our kids.  He's right.

Funny, but the kids aren't complaining too much (it was hotter than blazes on Monday).  They're running around, learning to be a Civil War soldier.  And so far, they're having a blast.

I Think I'm Coming Back

If any of my regular reader(s) are out there, you know that I took a hiatus from blogging after my father passed away in January.  It's been a tough, tough year.  I quite honestly, didn't feel like anything was interesting, witty or funny, and didn't feel like writing.   Between teaching, working on the estate, and just life in general, I was exhausted.

However, my number one reader of my blog (my Mother) asked if I'd start it up again.  I went out to Southern California to visit her for two weeks, right after school got out, and it was well worth it.  Time with her, time to decompress, time to think.  And one thing she said was she missed hearing about my kids and all the silly things that go along with teaching.

And I got to thinking that it's been enough time.  The estate business isn't done yet (I'm shooting for December), and I have a lot more to do. But it's summer now, and although I just finished a week of in-service, and have a week of summer camp, it's starting to look light there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, it's Father's Day - my first one without my Father - and I thought I'd come back and visit all of you and say hi.  I'm listening to the College World Series in the background, and he'd appreciate that.  He did love baseball so.

So for all the Fathers out there - bless you.  And for all of you who still have your father, please take time every single day - not just Father's Day - to appreciate the gift you have.

I think I'm kinda glad to be back.

My Heart's Just Not In It

Well.

It's not been a good year for the Bluebird family, which is why I haven't posted much.  Truth be told, my heart just isn't in it.

We lost a good friend to a heart attack (he was only 42) in January.

That was hard enough, but then, three days later, my beloved Daddy Bird passed away suddenly.

As you can imagine, it has been quite a blow to Mr. Bluebird and I and we have had our hands full with the funeral, getting his house gone through, and I am acting as executor of his estate.  The fact that I have always been a Daddy's Girl, makes this even harder.  My father and I were best of friends as well, something that not everyone, sadly, experiences with their parents.  So, Mr. Bluebird (who is awesome and is my rock) and I have been driving back and forth to where Daddy Bird lived (three hours away) to get things taken care of.

Taking care of an estate is a second full-time job, I've decided.

Fortunately, The Principal is an angel and is letting me have as much time off as I need.  However, the thought of leaving my kids with a sub for too long is somewhat daunting.  And truly, I kind of need to see my kids.  They have been a lot of comfort for me these past few weeks.

So, I'm not feeling funny, or witty, or particularly motivated to blog.

I'm just missing the best Daddy a girl could ever have.

Popsicles Anyone?

It's that time of year when you feel like you have to have a bit of flexibility in your plans because you never know what the weather will be like, and how that will impact your day.

For example, a little over a week ago we had a fire drill because it was 70 degrees outside. That was a Friday. That following Monday we had a two hour delay due to ice. Tuesday we had a two hour delay, then an early dismissal, due to ice. And Wednesday we didn't even go at all, due to ice.

So, I tossed away a few activities we had planned simply because we had run out of time. It's not ideal, but that's the way it goes.

I just hope we don't end up having a lot of cancellations like we did a few years ago. We ended up adding 30 minutes to the school day to make it up.

No one liked that.

If it's 70, and January, it's a Fire Drill Day

There are certain things you can almost bank on when it comes to predictability.

For one, if it's January or February, and the day is clear and unseasonably warm, we'll have a fire drill.  We're required to have one a month, and trust me, it's much nicer to have one when the weather is nice than it is when it's stupidly cold and rainy or snowy.

So, Friday, last period of the day, we had a fire drill.

Which was fine with me as it was nice out and the kids were bouncing off the walls anyway.

And today?  Well, it was 25 this morning and never got about 30.

Good thing we didn't do the fire drill today!

When Technology Bites Back

It has been a day.

We had our Learning Links math test, an on-line test, scheduled for the first two periods of the day today. This means that every seventh grader had a laptop and was trying to access the network at the same time everyone was trying to send in attendance and get the day going. Well, with nearly 400 kids, that's a lot of activity on our network. Many kids had to be patient, a challenge for most seventh graders, and kept trying until they finally got online. I finally gave up and simply walked my attendance up to the front office.

For the record, listening to 30 kids fuss about computer issues can fray nearly anyone's nerves.

After much fussing and trouble-shooting, all my kids finally got online and got their test finished before third period arrived. Mrs Social Studies wasn't so lucky. She had kids that couldn't get on for nearly an hour so her kids had to take their laptops to another room to finish, under the supervision of someone from guidance, while the rest of the kids went to class.

And that wasn't the end of the craziness.

We were about two thirds of the way through third period when the building lost power. This usually happens once or twice a year, usually when the weather is bad, and after a few minutes we get power back. Today it was simply rainy and drizzly, so the weather wasn't an issue.

And it took nearly two hours before we had power.

I know we had it easier than the PE department did, what with 200 kids in the dark in the gym, but goodness it got old really quick being stuck in the room in the dark with my third period.

I did have the emergency lights working in my room, so we could at least see a little bit. In fact, I did have the kids take their quiz by writing the three questions on the whiteboard directly below the emergency lights, rather than put it on the document reader. They were not wild about that, but hey we were still in class and at that point I thought the lights were going to come back on shortly.

After a while however, it became apparent that this was going to take a while. And then the whining began. First they all had to go to the bathroom, so Mrs. Social Studies took the boys and I took the girls and we walked them to the bathrooms. The girls at least had an emergency light in their bathroom, but the boys were faced with pitch black. At this point we suggested they use their cell phones as flashlights.

After that adventure we went back to the dark classroom and tried to keep them somewhat quiet. Which was a challenge. They kept asking if they were going to get to go home. There were a few I would have gladly sent home by this point. Then, when the clocked ticked past our usual lunch time, the cries of hunger started up.

Good gracious. I found a box of graham crackers left over from a lab we did this fall and had just enough to give each kid half a cracker. Surprisingly that settled them down somewhat.

Finally, after just a little over two hours, the power came back on. We completely skipped fourth period, and sent the kids to fifth period, used part of fifth and sixth for lunch, and finallyhad a normal seventh period.

And those kids who didn't finish the online math test? Some were still working when we lost power. And they'll have to start over and take it again, poor kids!

So glad tomorrow is a Friday.

Ka-Boom!

It's been a year so far.  And I'm the lucky one.  Mrs. Angora and Mrs. Eagle have absolutely horrid kids when it comes to behavior, and mine are, in comparison, pretty good.

Or so we thought.

Firecracker Boy is smart as a whip, but has issues with behavior.  He's new to The School, being one of the kids that was rezoned from another school into ours when The Powers That Be redrew all the lines.  The first nine weeks he was awesome - polite, hard-working, a great student.  It sort of surprised us, based on what his file said.  And then the second nine weeks shows up, he's now comfortable in his new school and has figured out his circumstances, and the "real" Firecracker Boy appears.  It was like two different kids.  Disrespect, disobedience, slapping other kids, threatening kids, you name it.  Dad has a meeting with us to ask us about moving him to 8th grade (as that's where he should be) because he feels that he's acting immature because he's around younger kids.  That didn't go anywhere, simply because of his behavior (and that group of 8th graders aren't all that swift either.)  What we didn't know at the time, because Dad didn't bother to share it, is that Dad calls the authorities on Firecracker Boy quite frequently when he gets out of control with his behavior.

So, a few weeks ago, I write Firecracker Boy a referral after I had him sent out of class, basically for disruption and disrespect, and he gets one day in In School Suspension.  I also noticed that on the bottom of his discipline slip, after it is worked and a copy is put in my mailbox, is the note that he has 100 points and the next infraction will earn him a trip to the alternative school.  So, he spends his day in In School Suspension, comes back, then is absent for two days, supposedly (according to his sister) because Dad caught him smoking weed, called the cops and he spent two days in a juvenile detention facility.  Okay, so he's back, and he takes his test and all is well and good.

Until 5th period when Mr. Math emails me to let me know that Firecracker Boy has just been escorted from his room by the Enforcer because he apparently threw a firecracker down a toilet in the boys' restroom, thereby busting the toilet and flooding the bathroom.

I guess he really didn't want to stay here much longer.

Needless to say, he's gone for a while, and even better, has a $500 repair attached to his name.

Brilliant.

One and a half days.

Drama, Drama, Darama

It's that time of year.

No, not the holidays.  It's the time of year when the kids decide they are all Sick And Tired of Each Other and the Drama starts.  The nitpicking.  The name-calling.  The arguing.  It's like being on one hell of a long car ride with six kids who can't get along.

We have two types of drama - boy drama (rare, but I have it going on in my homeroom) and girl drama (every freaking where).

Now, I rarely see boy drama because boys just don't go into this sort of thing - usually.  This year, however, I have several boys who just can't stop talking and messing with each other.  It usually revolves around disparaging comments regarding athletic ability and the ability to keep girlfriends.  I have one kid, Whiner Boy, who is constantly wanting to go to guidance to talk with a counselor because someone said he was a lame football player.

Really.

I can't wait until this kid hits the real world and a boss yells at him for doing something stupid.  He'll be on the floor in a puddle of tears.

And then of course I had the two boys get in a tussle over their STEM project because Boy One accused Boy Two of being lazy and Boy Two accused Boy One of not doing his share of the work.  Next thing I knew, they were slapping each other.  (That earned them a two day stint in ISS, plus Mrs. Sparrow had to eat her words about how the kids would love doing STEM so much they'd behave like angels.)

That's just a taste of the boy drama in my homeroom.

As for the girl drama...there's too much to even go into here.  I do know that the Guidance Goddess and the Guidance Diva are so fed up with Girl Drama that if one more girl walks through the doors wanting to write a statement or complain about another girl talking trash, that they just might hurl a book at her and shove her out the door.  Or, better yet, let the two girls get into a tangle so they can both be suspended, hopefully until January.

One thing about Girl Drama...the girls aren't too bright about who they stir up trouble with.  Mrs. Eagle has one little, and I mean little, girl who's a complete pest and who wants to talk trash and stir up trouble wherever she goes.  I have a girl on my team, Amazon Girl who is, easily, about 5' 10" tall and very big-boned.  She's not fat, she's just big and solid - and bigger than most of the boys and nearly all the girls.  In any case the Pest has been bothering Amazon Girl for well over a month and Amazon Girl has been doing the right thing, going to guidance, writing statements, walking away, and generally ignoring the little brat that's 1/3 her size.  Finally, on Friday, the Pest walked up to Amazon Girl at a dance, started messing with her and then slapped her in the face.  Amazon Girl had had enough, grabbed the Pest by the hair and just beat the snot out of her.  The result?  Amazon got one day suspension, but the Pest, who had thrown the first punch and who had been bothering Amazon for a month, got three days.  (Good thing there was all that documentation that Amazon Girl had done in guidance about the bullying she was getting via the pest.)

It's never boring.

Five and a Half Days.

Kissing Pigs

My home room kids sold 98 tubs of cookie dough.

As a reward, someone (a certain silly bookkeeper), got the idea that we should borrow one of Mrs. Angora's baby pigs and those of us who had classes that sold the most got to kiss the pig.

The kids loved the idea. Some of us, not so much. I actually didn't mind because there's not much that can go through a nice red layer of Avon lipstick.

In truth, I felt a bit sorry for the pig as he was obviously overwhelmed by the screaming kids. He was kind of cute, even if a bit smelly.

Kind of like a typical seventh grader, come to think of it.

What we do.....

The Most Popular Kid in Middle School

A few weeks ago we had our annual Veterans Day Assembly at The School. Every year we do a very impressive assembly honoring our Veterans, many of whom are parents, teachers, and support staff at The School. We live in a military community so Veterans Day is a very big deal.

We have the band play a patriotic medley, the JROTC color guard comes over from the high school to present the colors, we have a guest speaker from the community, and we have soldiers from the local military installation come as well. It's moving, it's patriotic, the kids get into it, and usually the guidance department is overwhelmed with kids who get teary eyed about the whole thing. Those of us on the committee that puts it together stress out a bit but usually every thing goes as planned,

Usually.

Every year we ask the soldiers if they would recite The Soldier's Creed to open up the assembly. Every year they agree. Sometimes they do it as a group, but lately they have given the honor to the lowest ranking guy there. This kid, because that's what he is, has to stand up in front of 1,000 kids and recite The Soldiers Creed, and unfortunately, it can be a bit nerve-wracking. We always ask if they need a copy of the words, because we have one handy, and every year they decline.

This year Corporal Creed stood up, began the Creed, and halfway through, he freezes. His mind goes blank. He pauses. He pauses some more. There is silent, dead space throughout the gym. You could hear a pin drop as he struggles for the words.

"Oh s$&?," he finally says. Into the microphone.

The kids go wild. They cheer! They applaud! And Cpl. Creed remembers the words and finishes the Creed and sits down.

I look over at The Principal and she is trying very hard not to smile, so that was a good thing. After that, the rest of the Assembly went off without a hitch, until of course the emcee introduces all our guests, including Cpl. Creed.

Guess who got the largest round of applause?

After the assembly Mrs. Eagle and I were shaking hands with our visitors and thanking them for coming. When we got to Cpl. Creed, I mentioned that he was the most popular kid in middle school. He looked embarrassed, but agreed.

Interestingly enough, that bit of levity may have done some good. Guidance reported no crying kids for the first time ever.

The story doesn't end there.

The following week, The Principal was getting ready to do our afternoon announcements and said she had a special announcement. Onto the loud speaker comes Cpl. Creed! He aplogized for what he had said at the ceremony and said he wanted to do it correctly this time. And he did. And better yet, the kids, in each and every room, gave him a huge round of applause. I wish they could have seen him as I heard that he, and the rest of the soldiers that were there with him, came in their dress uniforms and were quite a impressive.

And if that wasn't enough, he, and the rest of the guys were back that Friday evening for the Fall Festival where they set up a display and were giving the kids samples of MRE's.

Impressive.

Dog and Pony Show

There just are not enough hours in the day this year.

As part of the new STEM initiative in our district, we have to do at least four STEM challenges per year. The challenges have a lot of value as they are really good exercises in problem-solving learning. They are, however, completely built from scratch and are a lot of work, both in creating them, having the kids do them, and then grading them. We worked for about two months to get the last one designed and created, even including meeting over fall break.

Anyhow in the midst of all this (and the regular teaching stuff we do) we were informed that the school district was sponsoring a STEM open house and we were supposed to put together an exhibit for the big event. It was at the local high school that our school feeds into and would feature the schools on our side of town - elementary, us, and the high school.

Oh yeah. One more thing to do.

So we spent several weeks on this, getting the student presenters picked out, coached and trained. Mr. Math had his wife, who is working as a sub, put together three science fair boards for our exhibit which was HUGE as we were swamped with parent meetings and some of us were also working on the Veterans Day Assembly that, of course, was scheduled for the morning after our big event. We had a lab for the visitors to do, plus the kids brought their engineering notebooks to show off. Is it any wonder that we were all getting frazzled and some of us hadn't seen our spouses or family for supper for weeks as we've been so busy doing all our regular teaching stuff and then THIS?

Sigh.

When the evening finally arrived, the kids were great. They got there on time - hey, free pizza - were dressed nicely, and were well-spoken. The crowd, which was huge, seemed to really enjoy it and our Director of Schools gave us a thumbs up.

The really amazing thing is that Mrs, Standard, who is now in charge of STEM, actually said we did a good job. This from a woman who never, ever can say anything nice about anything we do. It's to the point that we hate to see her show up anywhere because we know it will be nothing but criticism and complaints. We couldn't believe it. (She did scare our kids when she showed up to watch them practice. They wanted to know who the mean, grumpy lady was.)

So the dog and pony show is done. Let us hope there isn't another one for a few more years.

The Magic Number is?

Mrs. Eagle and I often get concerned that we obsess too much over school and tend to let it take over our lives.  It's hard to escape.  School doesn't end when the bell rings, but often continues after supper and until we go to bed in the form of grading papers, updating grades, working on ideas for projects, researching labs, whatever.  And to make it worse, Mrs. Eagle and I spend a lot of non-school time together and even then we tend to start "talking shop' when we should really just let it go.

The challenge is finding something that will force us to stop thinking about school and starting relaxing a bit.  I'm back trying to run (or plod as the case may be) and that's helping some.  And I'm trying not to take too much home in the evenings, but that's a challenge as well.

In any case, Mrs. Eagle, back in September, calls me up and asks if I'd like be the fourth person on her bowling team for a winter league.  She bowls along with her daughter and son-in-law, both delightful young people, in the Old-Timers League at one of the local bowling alleys.  (I guess as long as you have someone over the age of 50 on your team, you can be an Old-Timer.)  For them, it's kind of a date-night where they drop the little one off with her grandfather and go out and have some fun.

"You do realize," I said, "that I haven't bowled in 35 years?"

"Yes," she said.

"And I sucked then," I said.

"That's okay," she said.  "Come on, it would be fun, and besides the kids suggested you."

Fine.  She talked me into it.  Well, maybe I should have said she bribed me into it when she went and bought me an early Christmas present in the form of bowling shoes.

So anyhow, I'm now in a bowling league on Monday nights.  And yes, I still suck.  But gosh, I'm having fun.  And Mrs. Eagle's daughter is enjoying it because, as she said, "I'm no longer the worst one on the team."  What's neat is that everyone, all the other players, are so nice and helpful and it's just a fun atmosphere.  We get out there, we play, we talk, we relax.  It's awesome.

And my average is 74.

Really.

Told you I sucked.

But I'm hoping to break 100 one of these days.    And I want a bowling ball for Christmas.

Motor Skills? String? What?

There are days when I think of something amusing, or witty, or interesting to write about but then, I get home, I grade papers, I work on stuff for school and I'm just so damn tired, I don't even bother to turn on the computer and blog.

I hang my head in shame.  I have become a slacker blogger.

Things are chaotic, mainly due to STEM and having 152 students this year.   This week, for the first time since school started, I actually had a complete planning period.  And I almost didn't know what to do with myself.  It was amazing.  It was surreal.  And it won't happen again for a while.

We're embarking on our second STEM challenge next week.  The same challenge that we worked on over fall break (we being the 7th grade math and science teachers), that we've spent time shopping and scrounging for supplies, and that we've been preparing the kids for for ages.

I hope the kids are ready.

We do have a concern.  One thing we've noticed, and actually have been noticing for a few years now, is that there is an amazing number of kids who have very little common sense when it comes to building or doing things with their hands.  It's like they can do a whole lot of texting with their thumbs, but give them a chance to actually do something with all ten digits and they're lost.

We did a scaffolding activity called balloon racers a few weeks ago which is a lesson on Newton's third law (for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction).  Basically the kids had to design a balloon racer which is a balloon, which has fins and a straw taped to it.  You put the balloon on a long piece of string stretched across the room, let it go, and off it goes.

Our kids had a dickens of a time figuring out how to get the string through the straw.

Really.

You would have thought we'd asked them to do brain surgery.  Fortunately, most of them figured out which direction they had to put it on so it didn't blow up in their faces (although some did have the balloon take off towards them which was a scene of my hilarity for all).

And it wasn't just my kids.  Mrs. Eagle, and Mrs. Angora had the same problem.  And Mr. Math said the kids in the Lego Robotics club actually were having issues putting the pieces together.  And it got us to thinking.    These kids play differently than we did.  We used to play outside, tear apart things, build things, make go-carts, and boats, and fortresses out of boxes and gosh knows what else.  These kids play with a controller or a mouse or they text, text, text.  They don't get the experience of going, "hum, wonder what would happen if I did this?" to a real object.

Now, I do have kids who do have this kind of experiences - mostly my kids from the more rural area of my zone.  But the numbers are getting smaller and smaller every year.

Are we creating a generation of kids who can't do things with their hands?

These Aren't Yearbook Photos...

I've been teaching at The School for ten (10!  Can you freaking believe it!?) years now, so it's safe to say that some of the kids I had during my first few years are now adults.  I do run into them quite a bit when I'm out and about, to the point that my father teases me when we don't run into a former student.

For the record, the girls are easier to recognize - their facial features don't change as much.  Boys, however, are a different story.  They get way taller, talk differently and their facial features change dramatically.  Believe me, there is a big difference from a 4'6" twelve year old and a twenty-two year old who's 6'2" and has a beard.   I get a kick out of talking with them and finding out what they're doing.  Fortunately, the ones I tend to run into are working and usually going to college.  (They must be employed at every restaurant in town.)

Lately, however, I've been spotting quite a few of my former students on-line courtesy of the local law enforcement's collection of mug shots.  The Guidance Goddess used to check the bookings log to see if any of our parents or caregivers had been arrested - obviously something like that affects are kids and, in fact, causes many of them to want to visit the guidance department in the first place.  Believe me, when a kid is worried or embarrassed about the fact that dad got picked up for drunk driving and is sitting in jail, doing science homework is not a priority.

In any case, these booking photos got so much traffic that they are now featured on not one, but two, on line newspaper websites.   And, not surprisingly, they are even more popular.  We're just a bunch of nosy folks at heart.

Sad to say, however, that the past week I have seen not one, not two, but three former students picked up and arrested.  One, in fact, made the local news (which is where I saw it first) and I about fell out of my chair when his name and face splashed across the screen.  Then Mr. Social Studies (who taught on my team for a few years before he got moved to Mrs. Eagle's team) ran into me and mentioned two other students of ours that had shown up on the website.

Sad.  Of the three, two of them didn't surprise me.  They didn't make good choices in seventh grade and they obviously aren't making good choices now.  (Running over a police officer is not a good thing.)  The other one...well, he was a bit scatter-brained, but smart, and had potential.  However, it looks like he took a wrong turn somewhere.

So sad.

Update:  As luck would have it, another one showed up this weekend as an accessory to murder.  Can't say I'm even remotely surprised.

When All Else Fails...Punt

I'm the first to admit that I really enjoy, and utilize heavily, all the technology in my room.  I know some teachers do a lot of PowerPoints (I don't) and they love that, but my favorite is my document reader.  It's amazing what you can do with that thing.  I've dissected a flower on there, zoomed in to look at the different parts, and gosh knows what else.  It's easy and convenient to slap up an example of something and work through it so the kids can see what's going on (talk about modeling).  I probably use that thing more than anything else in my room.

So, when it blinked on and off orange three times and then went off completely IN THE MIDDLE OF A LESSON on Friday I knew I was in for an interesting afternoon.  No matter what I tried to do, it would not come back on.  Tested wires, turned things on and off, rebooted my ancient computer.  No luck.

Darn.

My lesson was about doing formulas for speed, distance and time.  Let's be honest, our kids feel that they can't do math without a calculator and really have no clue what they are doing when they press buttons on the stupid things.  So this was one lesson where they really needed to see examples.  Except now they weren't going to see them.

So, I grabbed the bottle of white board cleaner, my cleaning mitt, a basket of markers and proceeded to do the lesson by moving from the three little (and I mean little) white boards scattered across the room.  I'd write some notes and examples on one board, explain it, the kids would work on it, and I'd move to another board and repeat.

I forgot how short I am compared to these boards.  And I was having to write REALLY BIG because it seems that half my kids can't see anything if it's not in really big letters.

Thank goodness we only had two periods left.  By the end of the day a tech guy had shown up, found a problem with a wire in the wall, and fixed it.  Yeah.

What a way to kick off fall break, eh?