The Class that Rocked

I usually make a point of going to graduation at the high school my kids end up going to, but this year, I HAD to go to graduation.  No way was I going to miss this.  Because this, dear friends, was the group of kids that we all fell in love with.  This was the Class that Rocked.

I don't care if you talk to their elementary teachers, their middle school teachers, or their high school teachers, you'll get the same response - "This was the best class I've had in years."  They were.  I think in nine years at The School, this class, easily, was my favorite.  In fact, if I look at the kids who've kept in touch with me through high school (and there are quite a few now that I actually sit down and count), most of them are from this class.  My house and cat sitter, after all, is in this class!

Oh sure they had their pests and troublemakers and thugs and goobers who wouldn't work (and the Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself), but overall, they were a great group of kids.  They got along.  They liked each other.  They actually had some ambition.   And they were nice.  And a lot of fun.

Unlike previous years where we all had to find our own seats in the rafters of the University Gym where all the graduations are held, The Principal called Mr. High School Principal and asked if he could arrange for us to sit with the faculty on the floor.  No problem.  When Mrs. Cardinal (8th grade Social Studies) and I showed up on Saturday for the ceremony, Mr. High School Principal was so enthusiastic to see us, it was almost embarrassing.  All in all about six of us went to graduation although a few others were in the rafters with family members because they had kids of their own graduating.  It was fun being close to the action.

This class was impressive, earning over $2 million in scholarships.  Many are going into the military.  A number of mine are going into the sciences - at least two into nursing and one into wildlife biology.  I ran into one of mine and asked if he remembered telling me he was going to get a Nobel Prize for science one day.  He did, he said, and he was still planning on the Nobel.  He got a huge scholarship and is heading to Emory.

I love these kids.

People rarely tell teachers thanks.  But when we see those kids walk across that stage, especially the ones who barely scraped through 7th grade, it is it's own reward.

Bless them all.

And...They're Off!

Today was the last half day of school for the kids.  (We report tomorrow, then we're free for the summer, in-service season).

In nine years at The School, this has been, without a doubt, the best homeroom I've ever had.  They'll be a tough act to follow.  So, while part of me is glad it's summer, in-service season, another part of me was a bit sad to see my homeroom kids leave.

It's rare you get a bunch of kids who are, for the most part, nice, eager to please, and able to get along with each other.  I could leave the room to run an errand to the front office or guidance, and they'd behave perfectly, the entire time I was gone.  They were just that good.  (I always had someone keep on eye on them, just in case, but never was there an issue.)  I had other homerooms where it was risky to do hall duty.

I am really, really going to miss those kids.

Entering the Temperate Zone

The past few days the temperature in my room plummeted to a whopping 59 degrees.  It was cold.  I was dealing with it better than the kids because, after all, I knit and I have lots of cardigans to wear when it gets cold.  That is what they're for.  The kids, however, seeing as it is almost summer are wearing shorts, sandals, and t-shirts and are absolutely freezing (and whining) in my room.

So for the past two days I've had the kids come to class, we take attendance, and then we walk down to one of our large group instruction rooms (a room you can pull two classes in at once which is awesome) and we run class there.  The added benefit of this, aside from the lack of whining, is the threat that if they don't behave, we'll go back to my room and freeze to death.

They behaved.  For the most part.

Today John, the repair guy (yes, I know his name now) was back and he replaced the brand new sensor that he put in last week.  For some reason, this sensor was apparently defective from the factory, so he put in another one.  Within minutes the temperate started to climb.  He was finishing up when I had my last class of the day return all our computers and probes we'd used for our lab and they noticed right off.  I doubt that John ever received so much enthusiastic thanks from a bunch of kids before.

Let's hope it's a nice, normal 72 degrees tomorrow morning.

Give Them A Taste of Power

Ah.  Field Day.

For those of you, like me, that didn't have field days when you were a kid they are a day, usually towards the end of school, where the kids get to go outside and do events such as kickball, and tug of war, relay races and the like.  Ours includes a volleyball tournament and speed skating (skating across the gym floor on dust mops) in the gym while we wait for the grass to dry out in the morning, and then a pretty big variety of events outside for the rest of the day.  The PE Department really knocks themselves out with this every year.  The kids usually get a free piece of pizza and a bottle of water, courtesy of the PTO, and then they can spend money and buy snow cones, pixie sticks, more drinks, and other snacks. Beats sitting in a classroom no matter how you slice it.

The kids talk about field day all spring so you think it would be a piece of cake to get enough teams together so we could have a half-way decent competition.

Wrong.

These kids all want to sign up for volleyball, tug of war, and kickball and that's it.  Most of them won't even sign up for those three and simply want to spend the whole time just being outside doing nothing (can't say that I blame them, truth be told).  However, the whole point of field day is to compete against the other 7th grade team (it was more fun when we had three teams, rather than just two), to see who can claim bragging rights as Field Day Champions!  Every year it seems that we try to come up with a different plan in the hopes of generating more sign ups, and every year it's a battle.  It's also a battle, once we're outside, to try to round up kids who signed up for an event and then can't be found.  I absolutely detest trying to find and round up the kids.  I'm not alone.  Most of us can't stand field day for that very reason.

So this year Mrs. Eagle (who's the other 7th grade team leader) and I posted the event lists, with the spaces to sign up in our team hallways and told the kids to sign up.  What ensued was another nightmare.  Kids were crossing out each other's names (nice, aren't they), whiting out other kids' names, not signing up for some events, and then too many signing up for others.

Sigh.

On Monday afternoon Mrs. Eagle and I took the lists down and tried to come up with the team lists for each event.  We were comparing lists and moaning about the fact that the kids weren't signing up and wondering whether or not we could cancel the whole thing due to lack of interest (we actually had the PE coaches tell the kids that it was a possibility which did spur a few more sign ups), when I had an epiphany.

"I don't know about you, but I'm done trying to wrangle these kids into participating," I said.  "And I'm done, trying to round kids up for events once we're out there."

"Agreed," said Mrs. Eagle.

"So what do you think about turning it over to the kids?  Pick a team captain for each team, give them the list, and tell them that they have to fill out the rest of the team and it's their responsibility to get the kids there for the events."

"It's their field day," she said.  "Why not put them a little bit more in charge?"

So that's what we did.  We went through the lists for the various events, selected kids we could trust and who could get the job done, made them captains, and turned it over to them.  I sent out an email to all my teachers requesting to see those kids at the beginning of first period to tell them what was up.  I sat them down, gave them each a copy of their team, told them it was their responsibility to fill up their roster and to get their teammates there for the event.  I told them if they didn't have enough people to field a team, they were encouraged to grab spectators and draft them.

And off they went.

By the end of the day, they'd filled their rosters.  By Wednesday, which was field day, some of my captains reported a waiting list for kids who wanted to be on the teams.  And this for events that no one signed up for!

Field Day was Wednesday.  The weather was PERFECT.  Seriously.  The absolute best weather for a Field Day - ever.  (Some of you may remember the year we had the tornado warning and spent Field Day in a hallway.)  It wasn't too hot.  It wasn't humid.  It wasn't too cold.  It was sunny with fluffy white clouds and it was just perfect.    None of the teachers had to spend a second trying to round up kids for events.  The kids  did it themselves.  We actually got to enjoy the events as spectators for the first time!  Oh, granted, we had a couple of knuckleheads who got into trouble.  (Nothing like Mrs. Angora who confiscated a record nine cell phones during the 8th grade field day, however.)  But all in all, it was just a lot less stressful, and a lot more fun than any we've ever had in the past.

Oh my gosh, why oh why didn't we think of this before?

How About Some Ice Cubes Now?

So remember how my temperature in my room was just amazingly hot?

Well, as luck would have it, the repair guy showed up on Tuesday morning and figured out that somehow the sensor in my room disappeared (yeah, I'd like to know how that happened myself since I didn't even know there was a sensor in my room, let alone where it was or what it looked like).  What this means was that the temperature defaulted to heat.  And when he tested the temperature it was 86.5 degrees.  Fahrenheit.

Of course.

Well, he put in a new sensor, the temperature slowly started to drop and lo and behold we got down to just about normal again.

Except now it's 62 degrees and blasting cold air to the point that it almost sounds like an airplane engine going off below the floor.

So on Monday the kids were whining about the heat and today they had their hoodies up on their heads, arms tucked inside their shirts and were sitting there chattering and shivering.

If it's not one thing it's another.

I did another work order so hopefully they can get it back to a nice 72 degrees which is what it's been pretty much all year.

Wanna Roast a Turkey?

My classroom is in the original part of the building (built in 1966 if that gives you any idea as to the age).  What this means is that I have absolutely no control over the temperature of my classroom.  This just drives my kids nuts because they are usually complaining about how cold it is, and are dismayed when I simply tell them to put on a sweater.  I then explain that we are at the mercy of the air, usually cold, that comes up out of the vents in the floor.  On days when it's particularly cold in my room (and this can be in the winter when the heat is on), the kids will pile their books on the air vents in the hopes to keep it a bit warmer.

Until Friday.

On Friday when I got to my room I noticed it was unusually warm.  Really unusually warm.  I did an email to The Enforcer and the Head Custodian and then pretty much melted through the day.  It was brutally hot outside so I more or less attributed it to that.  The kids were grumpy, and I was grumpy, but hey, we only have about ten days left so EVERYONE is grumpy.

This morning, however, was a different story.

I noticed when I went to open my door that it felt, well, warm.  Warm like the outside of an oven door feels.  This was not good.

And then I opened the door.

And was nearly blasted off my feet by the hot air that blew out.  It was, really, amazing how hot it was.  It truly felt like it does when you open an oven door.  The air was freezing cold in the hall way, but my room felt, literally, like an oven.  The Bantam Rooster popped his head in and immediately stepped back.

"What's wrong with your room?" he asked.  "It's like an oven in here."

"Wish I knew," I told him.  "But for some reason the air conditioner is putting out hot air, in my room only."

The Head Custodian showed up and took a step back when he stepped into the room.  "Wow, this is the worst I've seen in a long time," he said.  We checked both rooms on either side of me and they were nice and cool.  The hallway was cool.  My room, on the other hand, was perfect for roasting a turkey.  Or a teacher.

My homeroom kids walked in an immediately started complaining.  I told them we'd put in a work order, they'd have to just be patient, and we'd deal with it.  I actually decided if I needed to, I could put the kids on the floor in the hallway and they could work on their projects (Element Superhero Comics) and if they acted up, I'd put them back in the room.  However, as luck would have it, we had 8th grade field day today so our kids didn't get their first and second period electives - the elective teachers were running field day.  So, we had reserved the theater and decided to show a movie for the entire 7th grade so they could still have some fun time today, and we could share the duties of watching them and getting some planning.  What that meant was that my room cooled off a bit with the door open for about two hours and by the time 3rd rolled around it was tolerable.  Not great, but bearable.

We made it through today without too much whining about the heat.  I also told my janitor to leave the door open so the heat didn't build up overnight.  Hopefully that will help.  In the meantime I hope someone figures out what's wrong.  With only 10 1/2 days left, I really don't want to spend them melting.

Rasping Along

There are times that things just work out PERFECT.

For example, my father visited last week, during the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests, and while he was here he had a bit of a relapse on the cold he had the week before.

My sore throat didn't start until the afternoon after our last test was done.  Seriously.  It is like it waited until all that garbage was over with and now it's here.  And lucky me, all my plans are done, all grades entered, I didn't bring home a single piece of school work to do (first time in MONTHS).  So, I'm going to sit here, be lazy, nap, drink lots of tea with lemon and honey and hope this doesn't get too bad.

This Time It Counts

The Volunteer State has put into action a number of education reforms over the past few years, some good, some bad, and some we're still trying to figure out.

This year, for the first time ever, the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests actually Count For a Grade.

Let me say that again in case you just bashed your head onto the keyboard in shock - This Year For The First Time Ever, The Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests Actually Count for a Grade.

We're not exactly sure how this is all going to play out.  This year the score counts as 15% of the spring semester grade.  Our last test is Friday, and the last day of school is May 22, so that's not a lot of time for the tests to get processed and some scores sent back to us.  The Principal said to "be prepared for anything."  Our traditional promotion and retention meetings are pretty much out the window until the scores come because it probably will make the difference in passing and failing for some kids.  We've been asked to sort of have a list of kids "on the border" to keep an eye on should they either pass or fail once the scores have entered.

Now, we have been telling the kids this (and the parents) over and over and over all year.  No more just sitting there and bubbling in Christmas Tree designs on your form.  It counts.  No more finishing in ten minutes.  It counts.  No more napping during the test.  Because, you see, It Counts.

Amazingly enough, I still received a few parent emails from parents who either don't read the paper, listen to the news, pay attention to The School Newsletter, don't read my emails, or basically have their heads in the sand so deep that it just now dawned on them that their darling may not make it this year due to The Test.  These are, for the most part, parents I've been poking and prodding and cajoling and calling and basically trying to get them to PARENT FOR GOODNESS SAKE! but they just couldn't seem to get it together enough to make a parent meeting, sign an agenda, or return a phone call.

Really.  And now, they're worried?  They should have been worried when I made that first phone call last fall.

It. Is. Here.

We start the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Testing Extravaganza tomorrow.

Oh.  Yay.

Mind Your Manners!

At The School we've always had an open door policy when it comes to parents.  If they want to come sit in class and watch their cherub, we're cool with that.  In fact, we often welcome the visit even though the cherub in question often behaves differently when there's a parent in the room.  (My favorite is when they hide out in Guidance and watch their kid's behavior through the glass windows.  It's amazing what these kids will do when they don't think a grown up is watching.)  I've had a number of parents through the years, and even The Dude From the Hood, but the numbers aren't high - maybe a couple a year at most.

In any case, we got a letter in our box the other day outlining a new "Parent Visitation Policy" that parents had to read and sign before they could go sit in a classroom.  In a nutshell it says that they are not allowed to have a cell phone out and text or make calls while they are in their child's classroom and they are in no way allowed to interrupt or interfere with instruction.

My first thought, when I read this, was "Wow, someone must have been doing just this or The Principal wouldn't have come up with this in the first place."

And that just blew my mind.  The parents I've had in my classroom, including the Dude from The Hood, were awesome.  They sat in a seat I'd pointed out for them and were quiet the whole time.  I found out later that day that apparently I was lucky.  Most of our parents, lately, haven't been so quiet.

Mr. Math informed me about one parent he had who texted the whole time she was in his room (which, of course, got the kids more interested in the fact that she had a cell phone out and was using it than what was going on in math class).   Another teacher told me about a parent who would loudly stage whisper to her kid the entire time, to the point that she had to pointedly ask her to be quiet (it didn't work).  And that was just the tip of the iceberg, apparently.

It's sad, really, that this policy has to be put in place.  It just goes to show that manners, even in My Beloved South, are going the way of the dinosaur.  I mean, really?  Texting while you're supposed to be watching your kid?  What kind of message does that send.  (Let me make it easy for you - it means that whatever you're texting about is more important than your kid - and they figure this out really quick.)  Interrupting class because you can't be quiet?  (The apple doesn't fall far, apparently.)

Again, I think a class on manners would be a wonderful thing for kids in elementary and middle school.  And sadly, we need one for the parents as well.

Give Me a Little Space Here...

My sixth period has a total of 31 kids.  Now, that may not seem all that much to some of you, but if you saw how big - rather, how little - my room is, you can see that there may be a bit of a space issue.  I have seven round tables of four, which gives us 28 seats, plus some typical student desks ("Isolation Island"), so I can, barely, cram 33 in there.  That includes every single seat in the room, including one at the PowerSchool computer, occupied. And at that, the kids are practically on top of each other and there's not a whole lot of elbow room or space between seats. (And to make it more fun, there are six special ed kids, two gifted, one with some odd emotional issues, and a lot of just low achievers.  It's a real trip.)

People often walk into my room and go "How on earth do you fit 31 kids in here?"

I'm wondering that myself.

However, what's really odd about this class of 31 is that there are three boys who have decided that they need to Sit As Close To The Teacher As Possible.  This means that there are two boys sitting at my actual desk (one in my chair, another on a stool, they rotate every day), and another sitting on another stool by my computer.

I'm not sure what prompted this or brought it on.  Two of them Are Pains In the Neck (usually) who probably should be close to the teacher anyway.  The other just likes to be up there for some reason.  A few months ago, Bouncy Boy (a little thing wound up like a top with ADHD like you wouldn't believe) asked if he could sit at my desk.  I was at the point where I was willing to try ANYTHING to get him quiet, and to focus, and to get him away from some other low-achievers in the room, so I said that he could as long as he behaved.

He behaved. He did his work.  He handed me things I needed for instruction.  He was an angel.  I don't know if sitting up there has anything to do with it, but he's doing much better now.

Another one decided that he really, really wanted to help me run the computer when I do Brainpop and PowerPoints, and he really, really wanted to sit on my teacher stool (kind of like a barstool, a bit taller than a chair).  Well, it worked for Bouncy Boy so I gave it a try.  Same results.  He's doing better.

And then the third one, who's usually a pretty good kid wanted to sit on the stool by Bouncy Boy.  I was a little hesitant at first, but I said they could as long as they behaved, and they would have to switch back and forth and share the chair and stool, which they've done.  He's doing better now.

So, I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here as I've got one kid on one side of me, and two on the other.  I also tend to walk around the room a lot so now I'm having to squeeze by them every time I move from my document reader out to circulate around the classroom (which they don't seem to mind, we've got a routine down now.)   It must look incredibly odd to see these three kids working at my desk and teacher station, but honestly, as long as I get results out of them, I'm happy.

What has me wondering...why is it so important for these three to be so close to the teacher?  Are they that starved for attention and affection at home that this is the only way they get any?  I know some of them have rather, shall we say, testy relationships with their parents.  (Honestly, find me a parent of a seventh grade boy who isn't frustrated and exasperated...)  But really...does make me wonder.  Are we just raising a generation of kids starved for human contact and attention?

In the meantime, while I ponder these great things, I'll just learn to deal with feeling a little cramped and confined and appreciate that these three young men are finally doing better in science.  Even if it's something as silly as sitting at my desk that's doing it.

Whatever it takes...

When We're Doing a Lesson on Disruption and Disobedience, it's Not a Good Idea to be Disruptive or Disobedient

Really now.

After a week off for Spring Break (spent doing yard work, napping, taxes, napping, reading, napping, knitting and napping), we were back at it today.  We're at the point in the year where it's one big long countdown until the end of the year.  And the fact that it feels like the end of the year - with record-breaking temperatures in the 80's - doesn't help.

So The Principal had the idea, and it's really a good one, to go over and review with our kids the SWPBS expectations and see what we were doing and what needed to be improved upon.  She admitted we probably should have done this right after Christmas, but it sort of got dropped due to a whole number of things (namely, her surgery and a lot of flu, plus the fact that the new teacher evaluation system means you can't find an administrator with a search warrant as they're doing classroom observations every waking hour of the day.)

The lesson and activity were actually quite good, and quite interesting - I think it's important for the kids to see where we are doing well and where we aren't, and to brainstorm and discuss why.  However, doing this for 60 straight minutes was not a good idea.  It's hard to keep 7th graders involved in anything for more than about 20 minutes without having to mix things up.  The hour would perhaps have been better spent broken into three 20 minute blocks rather than one straight hour.

Anyway.

The data shows that the biggest number of discipline referrals, about 50% of our total, come from disruption and disobedience.  (One of the things I liked about this was we discussed what disruptions and disobedience mean when it comes to academics - the kids, some of them, figured out that this hurts everyone's learning when someone is disruptive or disobedient.).

Interestingly, when the seventh grade teachers were at lunch, we all commented on three things than ran through our homerooms this morning while we spent the hour teaching about How Bad Disruptions and Disobedience Are to All of Us.

First, when asked for an example of a disruption, nearly every class had at least several kids who called out - by name! - at least one little pill in each class that is, well, truthfully, a disruptive pain in the neck.  In my homeroom it's Arrogant Boy who thinks He's All It And A Bag of Chips, but who's really starting to annoy the bloody hell out of everyone.  He, however, thinks he's cute and adorable and doesn't see that everyone is starting to get annoyed with him.  At all.  He's completely clueless and thinks we're all just "picking on him".  Right.

Second, in every class there was at least one kid who asked, "why are we taking time to learn this?" and as luck would have it, there was always one little knucklehead doing something he/she wasn't supposed to be doing, and all we had to do was point and say, "Well, see knucklehead over there if you want any further explanations as to why we're doing this."  Oh.  They got that.

Third, the kids were wild.  Absolutely awful.  Here we are, trying to go over the plan, talk about expectations, blah, blah, blah, and they were doing exactly everything we said not to!  To be fair, it wasn't all of them, just a few.  I moved three of mine to isolation seats, and pulled them aside after the others left and asked them why they were moved. (One, of course, was Arrogant Boy.)

"Uh, because we were disruptive and disobedient?" said Arrogant Girl (a good friend of Arrogant Boy - what a pair.)

"Good answer," I said, "What do you think your parents are going to say when I tell them about you being disruptive and disobedient during a lesson on - surprise! - disruptions and disobedience?"

"They're going to be mad," said Arrogant Boy.  He's right his mother was NOT happy.  In fact, none of these parents were happy and all three apologized for their progeny's behavior.

It's going to be a long 34 1/2 days.  Really long.

When Your Teacher is a Body Snatcher...

We're currently working on our body systems unit which is one of my favorite ones to teach.  It's also kind of scary when you start finding out how little 7th graders know about their own bodies and how they work, but that's another post for another time.

In any case, a few years ago, someone in The Building got the bright idea of ordering some preserved pig lungs to illustrate the dangers of smoking.  However, for various reasons, they had never been used and were stored away in the science lab.  It's actually a real cool set-up - a rack made of tubes, with valves, and a place to attach the lungs (both at the same time even) so you can then attach the bellows and pump them to make the lungs inflate and deflate.  And these damaged lungs look incredibly disgusting, with a tumor or two on them, and they really don't pump well.  The healthy lungs are really nice and healthy and slightly bloody looking and they just pump up like a dream.

If you're a science geek like me, the set-up is really cool.  For some folks, however, it's a bloody mess.

So, Mrs. Angora remembered we had these so we decided to rotate them around and use them in a mini-review of the respiratory system.  Nothing like a little blood and gore to capture a seventh-graders attention.

First off, I had the rack in my room a day before I needed to use it, so I covered it with a sheet and put my "Do Not Touch" sign on it (fat lot of good that does), which prompted a lot of questions.  "What is that?" they'd ask and I'd say something vague like a demo we're going to do tomorrow, or something like that.   I may have even said "body parts" a few times, just to get them guessing and curious.

The next day, when I snapped on my rubber gloves and opened the plastic cases and hung the lungs up on the rack, was, well, priceless.  You can only imagine the comments.

"Gross!"

"That's so disgusting!"

"Is it real?"

"What do they feel like?"

And so on...one girl in my 5th period got a little green and asked to go get a drink of water, which may give you some idea of the reaction.  When I started pumping the lungs up, the comments and noise level got even higher.

What's even funnier is that we were a bit vague on exactly what type of lungs they were.  Mrs. Angora had told her kids that they were real lungs so of course, that's what my kids thought.   They kept asking if they were real (they were) but not what species.  I didn't bother to tell them they weren't human, but were pig instead.   Neither did Mrs. Eagle who's kids had the same reaction.  As Mrs. Angora said, "It probably didn't hurt them to think we go around gathering body parts in our spare time.  Keeps them on their toes."

I wonder if they think we're gathering up more body parts over Spring Break?

Her rotors are off a bit...

The Team has a kid this year who is a pretty average student - when he wants to be - and can, at times, actually be a pretty good student - again, when he wants to be.  The problem is his mother is more interested in his school work than he is (and, I suspect, does a bit of it.)

However, Helicopter Mom has a few things just out of whack, or as Mr. Bantam Rooster said, "Her rotors are off a bit."

Instead of making sure that he actually does his assignments, she has him do reams of extra credit.  I only allow 100 points of extra credit a grading period, and she was not happy with that.  (She's lucky I allow any.)  She'll send voluminous emails checking on his grades, questioning this, questioning that, but what she's not questioning is why her kid has zeros for assignments he hasn't turned in.  She also expects us to take any assignment late, and to give full credit for late work.

But what really kills me is her obsession with National Junior Honor Society.

Apparently, as a sixth grader (where, I swear, a kid has to be nearly comatose to fail sixth grade apparently), Helicopter Boy made it into National Junior Honor Society.  This is a very big deal for mom as she reminds us about this fact in Every Freaking Email.  However, Helicopter Boy Could Care Less.

A few weeks ago many of our seventh graders had a letter go home that basically says they were in danger of getting kicked out of NJHS due to either poor grades or behavior.  Now, seventh grade is usually the year that Kids Absolutely Fall Apart, so this wasn't unusual.  We get a lot of kids who were A and AB students in sixth grade who can barely manage a passing grade in seventh.  (I think the hormones hit them right smack between the eyes and knock every lick of sense out of them.)  However, Helicopter Mom nearly lost her mind over this.

The daily emails began - "Can he do more extra credit?" (No).  "How come he only got a 56 on his test, that's so unlike him!" (Because he didn't study and he's tested that low before). "Can you check his extra credit amount again?" (Of course.  For the Fifteenth time he has earned the maximum 100 points).  And so on.  I was not alone.  Every teacher on the team has been receiving these.

He did, miraculously, earn a 93% (A) in my class so, blissfully, I haven't heard from Helicopter Mom since he hit that magic number.

However.

The end of the grading period was Friday.  Today, Mr. Bantam Roster and Mr. Math both get emails from Helicopter Mom wanting to know what she can do to bring his grade up for the past grading period to an A.  Notice it wasn't what he could do, but what she could do. (Hum, need some new school supplies?  Here's your chance.  A mom wanting to give a bribe.)

Mr. Math was aghast.  "This woman actually wants me to change his grade to a 93% so he can stay in National Junior Honor Society!"  

Mr. Bantam Rooster was nearly as horrified.  "There's no way I'm changing his grade.  He had assignments that were not turned in and were incomplete, and he earned the grade he's getting."

Exactly.  He earned the grade he's getting.  And even though Mom is apparently wanting to do something - anything - to convince these two teachers to change grades, it's not going to happen.  As Mr. Math said, "We're getting into a moral issue here and it's not right to do what she's asking."

The fact that she even asked, is what I find the most appalling.

The Difference the Weather Makes

The other day The Principal observed that a cool, rainy winter keeps the kids much calmer than a warmer, dryer winter.  As she put it, there's something about the warmer weather that makes them lose their minds.  Considering that she has two middle schooler's of her own at home, as well as the years she's been at our building, she knows what she's talking about.

The last few years we had cold, long, snowy, rainy winters.  Dreadful winters (for My Beloved South, don't get all snarky, those of you in the Great White North.)  And, I think we got a bit spoiled because the kids didn't act really crazy until mid-April.  Of course after that it was absolute madness, but we were braced for it.

This year has been completely crazy.

Aside from having no measurable snow (and having just used one of our three snow days), it has been a rather warm, dry winter.  And this warm, dry winter, has morphed into a very, very early spring.  I have plants blooming about 4-6 weeks early if that gives you any idea of how early.

And the kids are blooming early as well.

The kids began losing their minds towards the end of January, a full two months early, and it hasn't let up since.  Whereas last year we didn't have any fights until April, we've already had quite a few and it's only the first week in March.  We've had kids expelled (and that's rare, even for my building), and so many stupid things happen that I'm starting to think these kids really are possessed.   Some of the fights are just stupid boy things where the kids are horsing around, "having fun", until someone gets annoyed and it gets serious.  And then there are the stupid girl fights that usually begin because girls can't shut up about each other and there's almost always some boy involved.

It's just plain stupid.

And I'm looking forward to the rain tomorrow in the hopes it will calm them down.

Well Why Don't You Do Something!!!?

During the past two weeks I've had some interesting emails from parents regarding the fact that their darling chooses not to do homework.  One parents insisted to know WHY I didn't place her daughter in after school detention because ANYONE KNOWS that if you take something fun away from a kid, they may actually get the message.  The other parent expressed a concern that since he and his wife are both working in the afternoon, and his son chooses to do everything BUT homework, was there anyway I could put him in after school detention so he'll get his homework done?

Well, as I explained, at The School, we only have after school detention for kids with behavior problems, not lazy problems.  Neither of these kids is a trouble maker so they don't qualify for that.  The Administrators decide who's going into after school detention based on the classroom discipline referrals.  I also explained that we are allowed to pull kids from their elective classes on Mondays and Fridays and that serves sort of as a detention where they can get their work done.

However, what I really wanted to say was "Isn't that really YOUR job as a parent?"  We have these kids for about eight hours a day, and then they go home and then, in theory, it's the parent who should check their planner, see what the homework is, and see that it gets done.  My parents even get an email letting them know what the homework is, so they have that to rely on.  But apparently these parents what us to keep their kids even longer, see that their homework is done, and then send them home.  Shouldn't they be the ones "taking away something fun" from the kid because they didn't get their homework done?  Shouldn't they be the parent?

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were of my parents and I sitting down to go over homework.  It was our time together - no television, no computer (well duh, they didn't exist back then), no interruptions.  These parents apparently don't want to spend time dealing with their kids' academic issues and at the same time are missing out on a really vital part of the parent/child relationship.  

Do you think if we asked these parents to pay more taxes so we can get paid to stay later and parent their kids, they'd go for it? 

Really, I'm getting sick of parents wanting to be pals, not parents.

P.S. Update 3/2/2012

One of these parents requested a form for an after school program we have called homework hour which works with our tutoring program and is funded with a grant.  I sent the form.  The comment he made back was that his son couldn't participate because no one would be able to pick him up.  What?  Who was going to pick him up from after school detention then?  The Tooth Fairy?  Or did he think we ran buses to drop kids that stay late off at their doorsteps?

Sorry to Interrupt your Saturday

It's been a busy weekend down here in My Beloved South (the Civil War Sesquicentennial, dontcha know?) but I did manage to squeeze in some grading on Friday night and Saturday night.  The rest of it will have to wait until Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, we've been doing our Dragon Project in class, which is an exercise in genetics, heredity and a whole lot of Punnet squares.  This is, from the comments I get from former students, one of their favorite things we do all year and the kids really enjoy it.  It's a four day, in-class project, worth 200 points, so it can really boost a kid's grade if he or she actually puts forth some effort. 

So, I'm grading the projects yesterday and I come to Goober Boy's.  He has done half of the first page of an 8 page assignment (a lot of which is coloring dragons to represent their phenotypes).

That is all.

25 points out of 200.

In four days.

Of class work.

Really.

Well, ordinarily, I wouldn't pick up my home phone on a Saturday and call a parent (I'd usually email, and I do a lot of that on the weekend, even though, as the mythology goes, teachers don't work after 2:30 on a weekday afternoon).  However, I know this parent pretty well.  I've had Goober Boy's cousins and his Aunt was one of those parents I'd like to keep forever.  She was that good.  And his parents are cut from the same cloth.

So I picked up the phone and called and got Mom on the line.

She was (a) shocked I'd call on a Saturday, (b) beyond annoyed that Goober Boy did nothing, and (c) promised that if I'd give him a second chance he would get that assignment done and turned in.  I mentioned to her that this nine weeks has pretty much been an exercise in goofing off, giggling, and not doing work and she mentioned my email from the week before about low grades.  She stated that Goober Boy said that "reproduction is really hard" and I had to bite my tongue at that one.  (The possibilities of snarky and sarcastic comments are nearly mind-blowing with a statement such as that.)  I did mention that never once did he raise his hand to ask for help, and that I've talked with him about that as well.  She agreed that she thinks it's simply a matter of not wanting to do the work (honestly, the kid should be a solid B student), rather than not understanding the work.  

He will be removed from his lab group and will have a new seat when we return on Tuesday.  He also will be making up all his missing work and knowing this mom, she'll see that it gets done.

However, I really would have enjoyed hearing her conversation when Goober Boy after we ended our call on Saturday.  From her tone, it would not have been fun for him in the slightest.

Balance? What Balance? Part II

There has been, yet again, some shifting of positions at The School.  A newer sixth grade math teacher wasn't cutting it, so they moved her to P.E. and moved The Coach from PE, into 6th grade math which is not making him happy.  He was the math teacher on my team when he first moved here and he's fantastic, but he's one of those guys who really got into teaching so he can coach.  (And he coaches two high school sports, plus one middle school sport, so he's busy).

What this meant is that the one math class he did have before this move, an inclusion math class, no longer exists, and they gave most of those kids to Mr. Math on my team.

Which meant he had an inclusion class, with no aide or other teacher, with 33 kids in it.

Yeah, like THAT's going to work.

Especially when his fifth period had a total of 14 kids in it.  Really.

So, guidance decided to flip four kids that had me for fifth period, into my sixth period, and then they went from math sixth period to fifth.

Which meant that now my fifth period is down to 22 kids and sixth is up to 30.  With six special ed students (who have resource math) in it.  I only have ten special ed kids over all, so most of them are bunched into what is now my biggest class.

Which also has 28 seats.

So, I've got more kids sitting out in the isolation seats than usual, and when we do labs, these "spare" kids, have to find a chair (I'm still hunting an extra one down) so they can sit at the tables (which are made for four kids) and work with a group of five.

Not ideal.  I actually wouldn't mind if I had more square footage in my room because it's more a matter of too many kids in too small of a space.  If I could punch the walls out and spread them out a bit, it would be a lot easier.  As it is, they're nearly on top of each other and fussing and whining and TALKING CONSTANTLY, so it's hard to get anything done.

So, after a week of this, after explaining that they are now the largest class, that we have a lot of kids who need to focus more, and how they can be good for 45 minutes out of the entire day, the gloves come off.  Half the class is telling the other half to shut up.  Tomorrow, I'll just start writing the talkers up as They Have Been Warned.  Maybe that will get the message across.

Scrawny Boy Update

It's been nearly a week since my phone call and email exchanges with Scrawny Boy's father regarding the hideously low grade (40%) in my class as well as all the missing work.

To date, he has turned in one assignment and half of an assignment.

Not exactly a stellar performance.

I have emailed Dad to let him know that I've only seen 1.5 assignments and to ask if he needed me to re-send any of the assignments I emailed last week.

Silence.  So far.

I'm not really surprised.  Dad has cancelled meetings with us before, and according to Scrawny Boy, is "too busy" to bother with him or his education.  He's probably not stretching the truth too much there.  I believe Dad was saying what needed to be said but probably didn't really enjoy the difficult part of parenting - making a recalcitrant and argumentative child sit down and get his assignments finished over the weekend.

After all, the Super Bowl was on.

Scan, scan, scan away

I love the fact that our big huge monster copier scans and emails documents.

And that I can email these documents to myself.

And email them to a parent.

And hope that they come back, complete, on Monday.

I'm thinking in particular of one kid in my fourth period (which is rapidly turning into one of my worst classes).  Scrawny Boy is failing spectacularly with a whopping 40% in my class.  He hasn't turned in one thing since the beginning of the semester and had a score of 20% on his unit test.

Really.

He always has excuses about why he can't do things - his parents give him too many chores, he forgot his book, he did it but left it at home, someone stole it - blah, blah, blah, blah.  Granted, I know his parents do have animals (horses for one) and he may be responsible for chores, but honestly, he's no dummy and can do a lot better.

So I called Dad.  Dad admitted that he doesn't check PowerSchool much (surprise) and was not really surprised that his progeny had been doing no work and scoring so low.  As he said, "It's always someone else's fault."  In any case, he asked if I could email the work to him (done), and send him a progress report (done), and if possible, information about how to access an online version of the book, if there was such a thing (done.)  He also asked me to tell Scrawny Boy that we'd talked and that he needed to bring his book home on Friday.  "We have a whole lot of weekend to sit down and get this work done," he said.

Scrawny Boy was not happy when he left school on Friday.  With his book.

Oh well.