Today = Brutal

Absolutely brutal.

I didn't realize that 12-14 year olds can be so blatantly, completely, and hopelessly disrespectful.

Two of my most troublesome little 7th graders, who at one point this year both seemed to be responding to me, have stopped. Neither of them seems to care in the slightest about anything except whatever it is that he wants to do at a given moment.

Silver lining from today: my assistant principal is going to ask for names of students who don't behave and stay with them for PE. So we won't be doing entire classes, and he'll be doing the PE sessions.

Busy few days

Wednesday I broke up my first fight. I think I took more punches than either of the boys who were fighting since I got in the middle of them pretty quickly, but it was still fun. I was disappointed because the aggressor is a really smart kid who can be extremely polite and respectful. However, he tends to be quite unruly when he's with people his own age. He wrote me a very nice note Wednesday at the end of the school day. He was suspended for the day Thursday.

Thursday I got a really nice note from a girl in my class. She apologized for "getting on my nervous." I don't really know why she wrote it because I hadn't even really gotten on to her that day. She hasn't really changed her behavior too much...but she's not terrible, so I'll let it ride.

I tried the no joking, no smiling, no laughing tactic with my classes last week. It was successful (I think I only laughed/smiled twice all week). After school last Monday, they said the only thing different was that I was wearing glasses. However, I think they picked up on a change because my 7th grade actually was extremely well-behaved all-around (until Friday, obviously, since Friday's definition in my school's dictionary is "day for nothing short of chaotic behavior") all week. I am taking credit for the following conversation I had with the English teacher. We both take our homerooms to lunch at the same time, so we were chatting, and she said, "The 7th grade has been very focused and well-behaved this week for me. Today they begged me to tell you how good they've been." That was Thursday...Friday was a turn for the worse.

I had a pretty stern talk with the mom of one of my students on Friday. I told her he needed to turn himself around or we'd have to have a conference this week. Based on last period, I think we're heading for a conference.

Update, and Something to Keep in Mind

Update: Our community's pastoral staff supervisor was supposed to eat dinner with us last night. She had a flight that was going from Atlanta to Montgomery that was supposed to land at 3pm. Last I heard, she was in Atlanta on standby for a flight to leave at 8:30. So she didn't make it last night. We currently are planning to have community dinner, community prayer, and 7 one-on-one paired walks (one for each of us) with her all tonight. In addition, I'm not really sure when it's going to happen but she is supposedly coming to sit in on about 15 minutes of one of my classes today. I'm kind of hoping it's my 6th grade (which starts in 3 minutes). We are re-enacting five Civil War battles today. Each group has 10 minutes to prepare a 3-minute reenactment. It should be hysterical. Especially when the boys get to start fighting. Oh boy. Let's just say that I'm prepared to film them. I'm expecting hilarity to ensue shortly.

Something I need to keep in mind: When I have 7:00am duty in the morning, it is not a good idea to stay in my classroom till 12:15. It's depressing to get back home after everyone is asleep and then be the first one out the door in the morning.

Weekend

Productive things done: Made coffee cake. Made Millie's Black Cake. Glued roster into my gradebook (still no grades written though). Graded most of work I had to grade. Planned for 8th grade all week. Planned for 7th and 6th for today.

Things left to do: Update paper and online gradebooks. Grade each student's (all 77) binder (which they need back today...whoops!). Update class webpage. Bake apple pie. Write bi-weekly reflection (due tonight at midnight). Cook dinner tonight. Our pastoral (community) supervisor is getting in tonight and leaves Wednesday.

So much to do. I never get to the end of my to-do list. Never. It's mildly depressing. I have already come to grips with the fact that I am not going to be able to include everything that I've graded/assigned on progress reports on Friday.

In Case You Missed It

Here is the ACE commercial that played at the very beginning of the second half of this week's (9-19) Notre Dame game.

http://video.nd.edu/210-fighting-for-our-children

One more thing...

About PE. Since my 7th graders are physically incapable of lining up nicely after PE (by nicely I mean take less than 5-7 minutes) I am officially keeping them from PE every day. Unless they earn it back. That way instead of always taking it away from them, I can use it as a real reward. I feel like it will help me to be more positive with them.

Today, I yelled literally as loud as I think I ever have at them to line up after PE. They didn't. They just kind of looked at me like, "Oh, what's his problem?" and went right back to their jacking around. The 8th graders were already part way from the PE area to the school (across a street and around some buildings). After school, an 8th grade boy came up to me in the carpool line. "Mr. Clary, was that you that be yellin' like that after PE?" "Well, yes, actually. Sorry you had to hear that." "Naw, Mr. Clary. It's just that we got so scared when we heard that that WE got in line cuz we thought we was gonna get in trouble." "Well, I'm really glad that at least one class takes me seriously when I yell. Because 7th grade definitely doesn't." I actually hadn't yelled all week. I was so happy with how I was doing...oh well. I guess that's what PE will do for you.

Making a Seating Chart (aka: Playing Russian Roulette with Your Sanity)

My seating charts seemed to work really well today...for about the first 5 minutes in each class. The student who tends to be...difficult...that I put next to a friend who has actually been very well-behaved for the past few days did very well. So that was rewarding/awesome.

My 8th graders did an excavation project this afternoon. It rained all morning, so the ground was extra soppy. And kind of gross. Added fun for some, added disgust for others. We ended up coming in before we found everything. Mainly because they were wandering around and doing whatever they wanted. Many of them lost many points just from today...and they haven't even written their reports yet!!!

I wore a white polo and blue pants today. Luckily I wore my brown belt and shoes. Otherwise, I would have been in the exact dress code for a boy at Most Pure Heart of Mary School. That was pointed out several times to me today.

We had a fight at PE. I got out late with 7th grade. Just in time to see a kid get out of a puddle, swing at another student (and hit him), and keep running for him. Somehow, by the grace of God, the other kid didn't swing back and played it really cool. I was impressed and pleased by that. Less so with the other student, who took about 15 minutes (and most of the football team) to subdue. Apparently the ACE teacher who I replaced had to break him up from a fight last year, and after he escaped 3 or 4 times, my predecessor finally just pinned him to the ground. And kept him there till he chilled out. Yeah. Real tough guy.

This is the part of town I work in...

So, in case it was in any doubt, I found out what part of town I work in last night when, from 10:30-11:00 I was digging up part of the playground to bury some "artifacts" that my 8th graders are going to unearth today and decide if the society that left them behind was, in fact, a civilization. Fun stuff. Well, around 10:45, a policeman drives by on the road that runs behind the school. He stopped. He turned his spotlight on and lit me up. "Hey buddy, what are you up to?" Obvious concern in his voice - not really concern for what I was doing, but the kind of concern that's like "What in the world do you think you're doing outside here at this time of night?" So...I'll try not to repeat that level of procrastination again.

In other news, I was pumped this morning when I called a student in from the carpool line. I made a new seating chart for today, and I put this kid, who can be absolutely awesome (and can also be very loud and talkative) next to a student who rarely shows his ability to behave. They're friends. I was kind of counting on the one (who has been trying to help keep his friends in line for the past two days) to keep the other in line. I asked him what he thought of the seating chart, and he responded immediately, "He won't get in trouble if he's next to me." I was so happy. The period that just ended went pretty well. I had them reading a really challenging article from The Economist (I opened my new one yesterday and the first Briefing had to do directly with what I was wanting to start talking about today. It was really hard. They worked really well on it. I asked who thought it was too hard at the end of class. About 75-80% raised their hand. I asked who enjoyed it. An easy 50% raised their hands. Reasons ranged from "I like to learn about other cultures" to "We didn't have to get out that big book [the textbook]." I'm probably going to run with this for as long as they let me.

Time to greet my 6th graders.

Just Call Me Mr Strict

I think I'm the last teacher in the school to have written students up. I asked another teacher to write up a kid who was completely disrespectful to her. She asked him to stop messing with her kids, and he wouldn't. He went off when she grabbed his arm and guided him back to our line. I hate it when my kids give other teachers trouble. So I asked her to write him up.

Another kid (in the same line) gave a classmate the finger. I got him. It was my inaugural pink slip.

Also, my 7th graders are taking the entire PE class today practicing walking back and forth from class to the cafeteria. They are going to HATE it (and I will too, probably).

I'm officially old...

...for several reasons:

1. It is not even 11pm yet, and I feel like it's (well) past midnight.
2. I can't look at my computer screen for more than 5 minutes in my contacts without my vision going blurry.
3. I refer to myself as an adult numerous times per day and don't even think twice about it anymore.

I purchased a new pair of glasses today. I got a good deal on them, and I'm probably going to switch to all glasses all the time because of problem #2 above. (They come in on Friday or Monday, so I'll have to hold out till then.)

After getting the glasses, I went back to school to pick up my room. Little did I know how much "picking up" there was to do. A housemate called me around 6:50 and asked when dinner was (since it was my night to cook). My response? "Probably in about an hour and a half or two hours...close to 7." Oops. Lost track of time. Oops. Couldn't help with dinner. My bad. The good news? One of the other schools cooked for us, so all my cooking partner had to do was side dishes. I handled clean-up afterwards. I'm also doing Crawfish Etouffe next week when our community supervisor is in. She will be here to check in on how well we're getting along living together. The following week, our academic supervisor will be in to observe us in the classroom and tell us why we're useless as teachers.

I was pretty productive after dinner. I didn't get new grades in (oh, well, there's always tomorrow), but I did set up my courses' webpage. I'm kind of pumped about that. Except it's one more thing to keep updated and maintained. If you're interested, it's http://teacherweb.com/AL/MostPureHeartofMaryCatholicSchool/MrClary/apt1.aspx

Enjoy that. Nothing too funny today. I'm going to try a new discipline approach with my biggest trouble-makers. I'm going to choose the one thing that each of them does that annoys me the most (I have a plethora of things to choose from for some of them), and I'm simply going to keep a daily tally of how often they do said action. At the end of the day, we'll discuss it. That way instead of my little "character talks" that I feel like are getting redundant and pointless, I will have something to actually talk about. (Once again, it's something more to keep track of...since I apparently feel that I have a dearth of things to keep up with.)

Week #5 (!?!?!?!?!)

I can't believe it's the beginning of the fifth week already. I need to get on the ball with my units and lessons!!!!

7th and 8th grades had tests on Friday. They were similarly formatted, I gave them the exact information to know on study guides (which we reviewed at least 3 days in each class), and the results were night and day. The average score in 7th grade was in the 50% range. The average score in 8th grade was legitimate. 6th grade as a content quiz tomorrow (I still need to write it).

Today was an awesome day. I stayed up till 1:00 yesterday night planning (and doing laundry since I was out of undershirts and dress socks). My 7th graders played battleship all day. None of them had ever played before, and I'm planning it use it to segue into using latitude and longitude to find locations on a map (they CAN'T do it yet, and we've spent the better part of a week practicing it). They thought the game was stupid at first, but once they started playing, they really got the hang of it and played well. My 8th graders are learning about ancient Israel at the moment. I was going to have them compare and contrast Biblical stories with their textbook, but after reading the textbook last night, I realized that the Bible was the only source it used. So they matched up perfectly. There was nothing to contrast. So...my students are not using textbooks this week. Just the Bible. There are partners who are each in charge of a given set of verses. They have to (1) summarize what's going on and (2) tell why their passage relates to any of the innovations or markers of civilization that we've talked about. It'll be great fun.

The reason my day was so great was because my classes behaved really well and went along with my lessons with little to no coercion. All of the other teachers had a really rough day with the kids. While I'm sorry about that, I am pumped that I can claim that they are responding to me a bit. This was demonstrated when I left my class with the PE coach to use the bathroom (we didn't go to PE because of rain), and I returned to find my room in utter chaos. I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, was pumped that it wasn't me that they treated like that. Funniest part of the day: after the PE coach left at the end of the period, I told the kids how much their mistreating and disrespecting other adults ticked me off. "If you want to disrespect me and treat me like that, that's fine. At least it's between you and me. When you do that to other adults while in my class, that is when I start to 'trip out'." (This was a phrase they had been using to describe the PE coach from the moment she left.) Throughout the course of this talk, I had to stop 2-3 times per sentence to allow random kids to have outbursts of conversations. One of the girls ("black-people-don't-eat-granola-bars" girl) yelled to the class that they "best shut up else Mr. Clary is gonna come all up in here trippin' tomorrow, bruh!" (Bruh = "bro"). I responded, "Let's get one thing straight. I don't EVER come all up in here bruh." I didn't really expect it to be as funny as it was. I literally haven't heard my kids be this loud for weeks. They were dying laughing. It was funny. I was pleased. It may have un-done the seriousness of the talk we were having, but there will be more opportunities for that talk. I can guarantee it.

PS (about the speech)

So...don't know if anyone watched the healthcare speech to Congress last night or not. I promise not to get too political in my blog, but I can't resist. I appreciate the bone President Obama threw Republicans in saying he was going to continue that President Bush program and look at medical malpractice lawsuit reform. My biggest question about the speech is simply this: He acknowledged at the very beginning that of the 5 committees in the House and Senate asked to produce bills, 4 have reported and the fifth will do so next week. He commended the work they've done on that. So, I don't understand why he is putting his ideas out there NOW. Why not BEFORE Congress did all this work? That's all.

It's Thursday!!!!

And two of my classes are reviewing. The third class is going to learn about Abraham Lincoln. I never realized how much grade school textbooks boil things down to the basics. I was actually getting angry last night as I read the entire (4-page) section that describes all of Abraham Lincoln's life. There was hardly any detail at all!!! My 7th graders didn't really cooperate today, so we cut the review short by 10 minutes. I just sat down at my desk and said, "If you're not going to let me teach, that's fine. It's your review for your test tomorrow." We were going to work on the hardest thing that we've covered so far. What they don't know is that so many of them don't get it that I'm not going to test them on it. The 8th graders are going to review with Play-Doh today. It's going to be a $30 lesson (seriously, that's what the Play-Doh costs). We are learning about early civilizations and the first writing systems. So...all the questions they wrote down yesterday on their cards (I read them to see what we need to review today) we are going to cover. Then, using toothpicks and Play-Doh, they are going to summarize each point. Using hieroglyphics and pictures. Hopefully it's A) fun and B) not a mess.

I have one test written, and need to write the other one tonight. I've also been telling my 6th graders all week that we're going to have a fun activity about tariffs. So I have to plan out a simulation/role play for tomorrow. I'm going to have some kids be plantation owners, some be American (Northern) factory-owners, some be English factory owners, some be Southern citizens, and some be Northern citizens. We're going to run through it once or twice without tariffs, and (hopefully) they will see that English clothing was cheaper and that the South sold cotton to the North and England. Then, I'll slap a tariff on the English goods and (hopefully) they will see that English goods become more expensive. There are a few more points I hope to make, but it might be a little too ambitious.

I'll let you know how the simulation goes. And, for those of you who knew that I'm sick, I'm much better today. Literally nothing but a little runny nose.

I couldn't make this up...

"Mister Clary, is you Catholic?"

"Yes."

"So, do you call it Christmas, or do you call it Hanukkah?"

"Um. Christmas. Catholics are Christians, not Jews."

Another note to me on a quiz...

...from one of my favorites:

"Forgot about the test. Couldn't think. It's my faulght. I'm sorry."

I almost wanted to pass him for apologizing to me...

Had this written on a quiz today

"Note: I have never been good at states. If we are going to continue with these quizzes, please give me another way to study."

I feel partially responsible for helping this student out, but at the same time...whose responsibility is it to come up with an effective way to study information?

Rest of the day

The rate at which my 7th graders did their homework last night stayed constant across the board in my other classes as well. I was not pleased. I think I'm starting to get through to a couple of my kids, so that feels good. More later...

Class of 26 people???

11 of my 7th graders turned in their homework today. It was really easy. Copying 10 definitions. We were going to play games in class with them today, but instead, I just told them to get every definition copied by the end of class. So, 25 landforms and their definitions. In 30 minutes. We'll see how many finish for a 50% on their homework.

You know, sometimes a mediocre day can be made all better with one humorous line:

A little background: There is a sketchy gas station across the street from school. Legit drug deals go down all the time there. The football team always wants to run across the street to get Gatorade and snacks from it before practice. They aren't allowed. So, I found out about this yesterday and went to Wal-Mart to get a ton of Gatorade and granola bars. They got smaller Gatorades and chips from the gas station for more money, so I thought it'd be fine to have healthier snacks and more Gatorade for less. I explained this to the class. One girl raised her hand (for once). Imagine the following line coming from an attitude-filled girl in my class:

"Yes ma'am?"
"Mr. Clary, I don't wanna be a racist or nothing, but...well...black people don't eat granola bars."

It was all I could do to keep from rolling on the ground laughing. Luckily I kept a (relatively) straight face, and dismissed class for the day.

Wow

Our really super-cool school counselor even had trouble with my 7th grade class today. They are crazy sometimes (often).

Yesterday, my cooking partner and I found out at around 5pm that it was our night for dinner. We threw together some tacos, rice, and beans. It went over pretty well. I loved it - it is one of my favorite meals ever. We have new partners starting next week. I'm keeping Tuesday, but I'm with someone else. She's really on top of things, so I think we'll be good.

School's been going pretty well this week. I have found that if it takes us 3 days to do what I thought we could do in 1, then that's OK. If my students don't come in quietly at first, it will lead to a loud and disrespectful period. So we go back in the hallway and practice walking in again. And again. And again. Until they do it quietly. They hate it, they get quiet, and they realize I'm serious. I feel good because they ultimately do come in quietly and we have a good start to class (albeit 10 minutes later than it should start).

I've also started writing students' names on the board to track their misbehavior. They don't really like it, I can discipline without stopping class, and I have something at the end of the day that reminds me what to write down in my permanent discipline records. Apparently one of my housemates has a "treasure box" which is the opposite of my names on the board. Each time your name gets on the board, your name goes in a drawing for a reward at the end of the week. Apparently it works really well. I'm thinking about doing that starting next week.

I'm really looking forward to a long weekend. I am not quite sure I know what I'll do for all three days of the weekend, but I'm sure I'll figure it out!