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.