Story of a 7th grader

I don't know how many of my readers have ever been to the principal's office, but imagine this:

You are blissfully sitting in your 5th period class when you get called out of class and down to the main office. There are a number of other boys there, all 8th graders. You don't really know any of them, but they all seem to know each other. Some of them seem like the kind of kid your mother expressly warned you to keep away from. As each boy is called into and leaves the principal's office, some seem subdued and a little contrite. Others seem ready for vengeance. Then it's your turn.

The principal asks you why you have been bothering a particular teacher on your way to your 4th period class. You really don't know what to say. Half your brain is telling you to say it wasn't me and the other half is telling you he'll never believe you if you do. You manage to stammer out something about how you don't walk by that teacher's room to get to 4th period. The principal looks at you and asks if you're in 8th grade. You vigorously shake your head no. He asks you if you know the teacher. You say that you are in her first period. Sitting back, the principal cocks one eyebrow and says there must have been a mix up and lets you go. As you walk back to class, you wonder how your name appeared on this teacher's apparent "hit list."

Later that day, you ask this teacher if she has anyone else with your name in her classes. She looks at you quizzically and then claps her hand over her mouth. "Oh dear! You didn't get called down to the principal's office did you?" You nod in the affirmative. "Oh, I'm so embarrassed. There is another student with your name, but not in my class and not a 7th grader. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." With her hands on both sides of her face and an anguished look in her eye she promises to clear up the misunderstanding with the principal.

When you get home, you tell your mom what happened and she begins to wonder about the sanity of this supposed teacher. About an hour after school the phone rings. It's the teacher expressing her concern and letting you know that the principal does now understand what happened. You wonder what the next day will have in store for you.

I'm guessing on a lot of details here, but if it didn't happen exactly like that, it's probably not too far off. You can probably guess which end of the story is actually mine.

Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear

The beginning of the school year came rather suddenly this time around. I had more than a week of paid school time before the kids arrived, but it still felt very sudden when the little guys showed up last Wednesday. But I've made it through the first three days of school, though I'm tired and slightly overwhelmed. There are still a lot of changes to be made in student schedules since they're condensing my three Language Arts Enhancement classes into two and spreading out my three Language Arts classes into four. And I still don't have my disclosure document/syllabus done--in fact I haven't even opened it yet. But my room is mostly finished.

After making such a big deal about my quick classroom paint job, I figured I better show it off. Here is my classroom as of Friday after school. There are a few more things I want to do (like put up the fabric that caused me to paint), but otherwise, it's set.


Don't be fooled by the spacious feel, however. It's not as big as it appears. In fact, the desks are rather crowded. Just like the last two years, I have them in groups of four with a couple groups of five. Unlike the last two years, I have all the desks facing foward rather than have the front two of each group facing each other. In many ways I like it better this way. My students, on the other hand, aren't always so fond of it. Who ever sits in the front left desk (from the teacher perspective) is literally boxed in. They have to physically move the desk to be able to sit down. I've just been telling the kids it's good exercise. Whatever Ms. B.

Early American Battle Tactics

It's probably apparent that I like alluding to things (usually movies) and seeing if anyone can figure it out. On occasion, however, I like alluding to things that my audience will not only never figure out, but also never notice that I've slipped something in.

Case in point: My letter to my new students.

In this letter I included some information about what books I am reading and what I like to do in my spare time. Can anyone figure out what I am subtly alluding to that none of my students will ever notice or figure out?

In my spare time, I enjoy reading all sorts of books. Right now I am reading a book about early American battle tactics and recently finished one about a teenage super-spy. I enjoy keeping up a blog so that my friends and family know what’s happening in my life. When I’m not writing blog entries, I like to quilt and play ultimate frisbee both of which are great ways to unwind. I also enjoy writing poetry and reading friends and family member’s blogs.

Fastidious: excessively particular, critical, or demanding

Along with the new school year, a new principal, and a new curriculum, I am also getting a new classroom. You would think that I would be more concerned about the new Language Arts Enhancement class I will be teaching in addition to regular Language Arts, but no; it's all about color and walls.

In an effort to dress up my classroom, I have various blue and red patterned cloth swagged around the top of my classroom walls. I think it's fun and the star/solar system pattern works in nicely with our team's name: Stars.

My new classroom had two walls painted a very nice sea green; let me emphasize that correctly--a VERY NICE sea green. But sea green with a stars and stripes color scheme? I don't think so. I seriously lost sleep over the very thought.

The next morning I stopped by Home Depot for some color samples before heading to school to pack up books. On my way home for lunch, I picked up a nice light blue and with some help from a friend (Thanks Kristine!) I got a first coat on. Later that evening, the second coat went up and I was done for the week. It was my last week of summer vacation and I committed to stay away from school until my first contract day. Did I have a lot of work to do on curriculum? You bet! Did I do anything about it? No Way! But, my classroom will look great!

So here's the question: Does the title fit?

Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

That is a fairly common saying, but for true fans, you will know exactly what I am alluding to.

I came down with a nasty cold this week. I had been healthy all year, a feat for someone who teaches 7th grade. I stayed home from school on Wednesday, but dragged myself to school on Thursday sans voice. My students needed me. We had work to do! We also had parent teacher conferences that evening, but I had to communicate in purple via a small white board.

I again dragged myself to school on Friday along with my laptop. I had decided I needed to be a little more high tech about how I communicated with my students. With my laptop connected to the projector, I typed my lesson. The kids were great. It wasn't a big deal because they were just finishing an assignment I had given them the day before.

Despite my innovations, by lunch time, I was done for. Leaving my lunch where it was, I went directly to the team office and collapsed on the couch. The teacher who was already there put her jacket over me, and as the other teachers came in I could hear the whispered--she should go home--yes, but there aren't any subs--well, who has 5th period prep--etc. Twenty minutes later, I was told that the remaining classes were covered and that I was to go home.

I printed out my lesson off my laptop--it was very convenient to have it all scripted word for word--packed up my stuff, and went home. My plan was to take my temperature, two TylenolPM, and sleep for as long as I could. I was out of the frying plan.

I successfully took my temperature (101+) with my relic of a thermometer--the old glass and mercury kind. Unfortunately, as I was shaking it down, it hit the sink and broke. Great! I carefully cleaned everything up, took a decongestant, two Tylenol PM, and crawled into bed. That's when I realized I had something in my eye.

I crawled out of bed and extracted an eye lash; however, after crawling in and out of bed two more times, I realized that a minute piece of glass from the thermometer was in my eye. Double Great! After debating with myself for about a minute, I knew that I had to go directly to the doctor. Problem: I couldn't drive. I took two TylenolPM.

I called my visiting teacher who found someone to take me to the doctor as she herself couldn't. No appointment times were available, but "foreign body" patients don't have to have one apparently. As I talked to the lady at Kaiser, I was crying, but I told her I wasn't going to try to stop as the tears would probably help.

Fighting sleep, a temperature, a cough, and the fatigue that comes from not having eaten anything since breakfast, I made it to the doctor's office with the assistance of a sister in my ward. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long to see the optometrist. She numbed my eye and confirmed that I did have a sliver of glass embedded in my cornea. After explaining exactly what she was about to do, she fished it out whereupon I became lightheaded and nauseous. It took five minutes of lying down on the floor and two cans of OJ to get me feeling a bit better. I now have to put antibacterial ointment into my eye three times a day for the next few days. That, I can handle.

So here I am alternately taking decongestant and putting cream in my eye. Everyone keeps saying--That's terrible--you poor thing. Granted, it's not very fun, but I'm more inclined to laugh than cry. Who would have thought that I would end up at the optometrist's getting glass removed from my eye when all I wanted to do was take two TylenolPM and go to sleep. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire.

Here's a picture of my new thermometer purchased yesterday when I picked up my eye-cream prescription (It wouldn't upload right side up!). When I read the back, I had to chuckle.

Ignore it and it will go away

I grew up being taught that ignoring a problem will not make anything go away. However, I have discovered recently (i.e. today) that feigned ignorance really does have a place.

I have various boys in my classes who really just annoy me. On an individual level, I like them just fine and want to help them succeed, but they still can make my blood pressure rise. Why are they annoying? Well honestly, they are annoying because I let them annoy me. "This is middle school," I tell myself. "They're supposed to make farting sounds with their armpits and then snicker." What else should I expect?

And thus came today's experiment. I became deaf to all farting noises, squeaky chair noises, and the dozens of other noises that 12-year old boys like to make especially if they know it bothers you. We're in the middle of a state writing test so after passing out their materials, reading the instructions (again!), and making sure everyone had a pencil, I sat down at the table in the front of the room and ignored my students.

Okay, so that may be a little extreme. I did make sure they had extra paper, sharpened pencils, and dictionaries, but that was it. Those few boys who find great delight in pushing my buttons pushed for a little while longer, but eventually stopped, or at least toned it down a lot.

The best part was that I wasn't worried about having to go to the doctor to have my blood pressure checked.

Later on, oddly enough, the administrator who recently observed me told me that I have excellent classroom management. "Oh really?" I thought. "I can think of a time or two when things didn't go so well." Naturally I didn't mention this to him, but I do feel that I learned a lesson today that will help me live up to that image.

You Hear the Door Slam . . .

Okay, so name that tune (see title).

I feel like I'm in the doldrums of the school year. It's been hard keeping my chin up as it were and keeping a level head. The kids must feel similarly it seems because I've had more issues of the annoying behavior that gets under the skin.

With that back ground, earlier last week I had gone over to the classroom next door to ask the teacher if a student could work quietly in her room. As I returned to class through the doorway that connects our two classrooms, I found my class more out of control than I was willing to accept. As I stormed into the classroom to give them what for, I let my anger get the best of me and I slammed the door on my way in. I don't let myself get angry too often like that. I hate the feeling and really it doesn't do any good. The kids certainly were good the next day, though.

The silver lining is that my neighbor teacher has been laughing about it ever since. She was so surprised that her supposedly level headed, calm, put together neighbor (like anyone who knows me well would believe that!)had it in her to slam the door like that. When the story came out next day at lunch, everyone got a kick out of it and congratulated me on joining the "dark side." I was just glad that I could provide some entertainment. Now if only my students saw it that way!

Think spring everyone!

Joy of Grading

I freely admit that grading is not my favorite thing to do. I'm always doing things to make it either more interesting or at lest seem like it's not taking too long. Today my strategy was "look for good quotes to put on my blog." I was part way through the first class of essays when I couldn't help but almost die laughing. Students say the most interesting things sometimes. After that essay, I kept an eye out for more quotes.

As a point of reference, the students are persuading someone to watch less T.V. The students, of course, are not named, and the spelling is their own.

Student A: The only person that comes to my mind that watches six hours of T.V. is my friend but than it is not his fault it is the movie's fault the godfather siereis is abou 6-7 hours long. I think if you watch six hours of t.v. you have no lif. Yet that is only my opinion (Pleas don't get mad).

Student B: Their is alot more in Life than T.v Like Camping, exploring, reading But most of all, Family. Sometimes you get so into T.v That you Forget about your Family and other important things.

Student C: My first opinion is to convince them to watch less TV. TV can roten your eyes if you watch it to much.

And my favorite:

Student D: If you love tv so much why don't you just go out side and act like your in a movie. Act out of pretend your a spy of something like that have a picnic out side and watch the cloud's. Look at the beutifule nature that was atended for us in the First it's not like god made a tv and said watch this six houers a day and become fat and stupid like a couch potato now did he.

So there you have it--some gentle reminders about why we shouldn't watch too much T.V. Now I just need to help them re-read what they've written so they can catch some of those mistakes.

What's better than a snow day?

How about a snow week! So I haven't gone to school once this week. Okay, that's not entirely true. I swung by quickly on Tuesday to pick up some papers that needed to be graded. The roads were not too icy so I made the journey. I was glad I did.

So what does a snowed/iced in teacher do with a snow week? Well let's see . . .

Monday: Slept in a bit. Got up when my sister called. Exercised, took a nap, finished grading a stack of persuasive essay first drafts. Found out FHE was canceled, so called my sister to see if I could join her family for FHE by web cam. Prepared a lesson on the birth of Christ. Had FHE. Held copies of December Ensigns up to the web cam for my niece to see. Ate gingersnaps for refreshments while my sister and her family had angel thumbprint cookies. "Helped" put Anna to bed by listening to a story, singing, and saying her evening prayer. Afterwords, I did some cleaning and then watched a movie and quilted.

Tuesday: Had a family from my ward over for lunch. They have taken care of my cats before and will be taking care of them over Christmas. Ran errands after lunch--including picking up papers from school. Mailed my teaching license application, retirement information, and insurance information. After dinner, I watched another movie while quilting. I'm getting close to being done with this part of the quilting.

Wednesday: Exercised, and figured out if I would be able to get my hair cut. It snowed all day, so I wasn't about to drive, but I knew that the bus went right past the shop in Forest Grove and would pick me up only about a 1/2 mile from my house. So I spent from about 11:15 to 3:30 traveling and getting my hair cut and colored. It made a nice change from sitting at home. I finished all the grading, but the essays I'd picked up Tue. I dinked around on the computer for a while and finished the night watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas while quilting. I'm about 12 inches of sewing away from rolling it for (hopefully) the last time.

Thursday: Slept in again. Made sourdough waffles for brunch. Graded three classes of essays. The cats thought I should spend the time with them and even went so far as to try to keep me from my work. Here they are sitting on some of the essays. You can only just see the paper Sambo is sitting on.
Mixed up the dough for some sourdough bread. Graded the last two classes' essays. Formed the bread into loaves and went Christmas shopping. I'm basically done, but I had an inspiration for one more gift and since I had time . . . Well, I forgot about the bread and so made a final stop to get some new tennis shoes. My only good pair are mud covered from playing ultimate frisbee. When I got home, the bread was definitely ready to be baked. I had dinner, pre-shrunk some fabric for a project, and waited and waited and waited to find out if we would have school tomorrow. I finally decided that if I did have to go in, the only productive thing I could do with the kids was to review their grades with them. So I put all the grades in the computer. Half way through that, I got the voice mail--no school. I'll go to bed as soon as this is posted.

Let it Snow?!

I've been looking forward to Sunday all week. I love going to church and associating with the saints. At the very least it gives me something to do, and at it's best, my knowledge and testimony of the gospel increases.

Right as I was about to leave, I happened to check my email, which I rarely do on Sunday morning, and there was a message saying that church was canceled! Why? Well the picture and video should say it all.

I was really hoping to be able to stay home from school on Monday. Too bad the snow couldn't have waited. I'd much rather go to church than to school. Oh well, there's still hope I guess. Maybe there will be too much ice on the road to make it to school safely in the morning. The snow is beautiful. It's coming down if pretty big flakes right now.

Conference + Prayer = Well Behaved 7th Graders

I've been rereading and listening to Elder Bednar's last two general conference talks on prayer. Everything he says really helped me understand prayer a little better, but two thoughts struck me in particular. In his first talk on prayer he explains the importance of phrasing our requests to reflect our intent to act and not just to ask. From his second talk, the idea that our morning prayers can be times of commitment and our evening prayers a time of reflection on those commitments helped me rethink the way I pray.

Today, I saw in a simple way those two ideas combine to make a difference in my life. I've been praying that I will be guided in my choices and actions especially as it relates to my students (intent to act) knowing that at the end of the day I would report. As I started my third period, my first regular Language Arts class, I knew it could be a struggle to help the students stay on task since I was giving them a "catch-up" day. The thought came to me to ask them what should happen if a student chooses not to respect the need for quite as people work. They came up with all sorts of ideas (including expulsion from school), but out of the discussion, I formulated a three step plan: first instance of talking brought a warning, second instance brought a change of seat, and a third instance meant a 30 minute lunch visit with me and a chat with parents. It worked beautifully. It was clear and simple, and I never had to go beyond the second step nor move more than a handful of students total (some of them moved themselves).

I am grateful for Apostles and Prophets who teach correct principles from the Lord.

Ask in Faith and Pray Always by Elder David A. Bednar
http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,49-1-851-31,00.html
http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,49-1-947-14,00.html