Basketball this week

Tuesday all three classes are testing, then we'll be projecting for the rest of the week in all three classes. 6th grade is making a Facebook profile for an historical figure that we've discussed, 7th grade is making a MySpace page for one of the countries that we've covered, and 8th grade will be making the front page of a newspaper from one of the eras that we've discussed. Haven't quite ironed out all the wrinkles, but I hope to tonight. Then I can concentrate on making finals for all the classes later in the week. Oh yeah, and planning basketball practices since we start with those on Wednesday. Our practice schedule is Wed and Thurs from 4-6. I want to try to make Mondays an "open gym" on our blacktop at school and Tuesdays a study hall until 6 in my classroom for the basketball team.

This past weekend was spent in Austin on December Retreat. All the ACE teachers from across the country were there - it was an executive retreat center called Balcones Springs Executive Retreat Center or something like that. It was really nice, but the meeting rooms were kept ridiculously hot and stuffy. The contrast between that and the cold outside (it snowed on Friday) got me feeling quite a bit under the weather. Luckily my 6th graders were nice enough to take it easy on my today. I conserved my energy for 8th grade. It was needed.

7th grade was a little wild today, which kind of annoyed me. I had spent all weekend talking about how much better they've gotten. I guess I spoke just too soon. I am also getting extremely annoyed with my principal. I asked her today about the possibility of a positive reward for my 7th graders. I thought she'd be all for it since she is apparently torpedoing our discipline system in favor of "something that focuses on the positive." She told me that class-wide positive rewards were not a good idea because some could behave all the time and others have occasional flare-ups of misbehavior. Sometimes I wish I were running the school.

Upcoming Challenge

We'll get there. We just have to make it sound positive. Personally, I don't really think that we need structured positive things. I do things in the classroom - taking my class to recess after lunch, giving candy rewards, and drawings at the end of the week. I think that for the kids who stay out of trouble, the positive is that issues with other students will actually be addressed. I don't want to sound like I was the absolutely perfect student in school (but I was close)...but I was never rewarded according to some scale of "goodness." A good education was the reward. I'll be interested to see what is presented tomorrow. That's when my principal said she'd have something ready to share with us.

December 1: Bombshell Day

Bombshell #1: My pet project was asked not to return to school. So, no more him. I need to figure out a way to contact him.

Bombshell #2: This discipline system that we have been working on? Today, my principal told me in a private meeting (so, naturally, I will post it to cyberspace) that she can't support what we've come up with so far. I was flabbergasted because my understanding after our last meeting was that everyone was on board but that there might be a few kinks to work out. So, I'm going to try to keep the pressure up on her to outline either (1) what her specific problems are so we can address them or (2) what her alternative would be. The goal is (I think) to have something in place to start with come January.