Last Friday

Last Friday was a lot of fun. My classroom was miserable because I found the thermostat on 60 degrees on Thursday night when I left. In order to make up the energy that we had wasted, we held class all day Friday at 80 degrees. I was fully prepared to deal with sweating all day, but I was unprepared for the smell that hit me like a truck about two class periods into the day. The stench of BO added an unexpected element of deterrence to anyone who wants to mess with my thermostat again.

Other funny stories from Friday include my giving up teaching my 8th graders. After stopping about 5 times in two minutes (they took my restarting each time as an invitation to start their conversations back up), I dropped my yardstick (my "enforcer" prop that I wield daily) and sat back down at my desk. The class got immediately silent, they all started looking at me, and after about 15 seconds started saying, "OK, Mr. Clary, we'll be quiet. Come back and start teaching again." I didn't really know what to do, so I stayed at my seat staring at the board. Then one of my students got up, stood behind my podium, looked at my lesson plan, and started running class. It was actually pretty good. They stayed quiet and did their work. At one point, a girl had a question about the worksheet, and turned to ask me. I shook my head and pointed at the new "teacher," so she addressed him with "Mr. _____." It was pretty funny. He handled the question well.

Also, my 6th graders told me that I can be boring sometimes, so I had three of them up to teach on Friday as well. They actually did a pretty good job. One kid even looked down at my roster and called on a random student that did not have his hand up. His teaching stopped then because I was laughing too hard to let him continue.

Finally, PE was rained out at the end of the day, so I had my 7th graders inside with me. They were completely rambunctious, and I couldn't get them to do what I wanted, so I asked for someone to come teach the class. Luckily, the student I wanted to teach volunteered. I sat at his desk and let him get a sentence into whatever it was that he was saying. Then I turned around and started talking to the student behind me. He came and quieted me. When he left, I started digging through his pencil pouch and messed with his eraser tops. Then I threw a pencil at another student (he was looking, and I aimed at his legs). One kid in the class was literally rolling on the ground laughing. Everyone got the point (it didn't really stick though).

So, Friday was awesome...then this weekend was great too. I did all my grading on Saturday at Barnes and Noble. Saturday I also explored Mobile's Cathedral and went to a seafood place out on the water. It was awesome. Sunday I went to the beach in Pensacola before planning. Then, yesterday, I had a very rude awakening. More on that later...apparently, I was so grumpy when I got home that it merited the rest of my community making a poster for my wall with encouraging messages. It was really funny, but I felt bad that I had been so noticeably affected. This morning's class (7th grade) went well - especially in light of the fact that it was that class that caused most of my stress yesterday. More on Monday later...