The Dance

Well, last Friday night we had our first home Varsity football game. After the football game, we had our first dance......and I chaperoned! :) Wheww whee! I was in my classroom from 6:30am on Friday morning until 7:30pm Friday night. Getting caught up on grading, entering grades, and lesson planning. I finally left my classroom to head on over to the football game. We were losing at half-time 21-0 OUCH! I stayed at the football game for awhile chatting with some of the other teachers. I politely relayed my frustrations to them with my classes and my 54.3% class average. One of them said her highest average was a 52%?! What?! What is up with this?!?

I think she could sense my frustration because she told me to focus on the important parts of the lesson and to keep on going. She said that our jobs as teachers was to present the material to prepare students to the absolute best of our ability. The rest is up to the students. She is right. I think a lot of my problems (and classroom average) could be solved by having my students simply do their homework and study. I can only do so much. I can't sit there and take the test for them, I can't write the answers in for the labs, I can only create amazing lessons rich in content knowledge and express my enthusiasm for the material. That is it. I can show them how much I care, I can show them how concerned I am, but that is it. The rest is up to them.

I also spoke with a fellow teacher who has the "referral student who made me cry" in one of her classes. She said he has poor attendance in her class too. There have been 20 days of school and this kid has 12 absences in my classroom. 12!? When he is in my class, he just glares at me and refuses to do any work. He mouths off under his breath and shows up late. On Wednesday, I noticed he was standing out in the hallway just past the entrance doors. Since I greet my kiddos at my door, I walked to the entrance doors and said, "Hey guys, come on, let's go, we have a quiz today." He glared at me and said, "The bell hasn't rung yet." I smiled and said, "Well, let's get a move on - we have the M&M lab to finish today."

I turned around and walked in to my class to get started. He showed up 2 minutes late. He was 5 steps away from my classroom door!!!!! When he came in late, all the other students were taking the quiz already. When I asked him why he was late, he said, "I was taking a s*@t!" I didn't respond. I ignored him the rest of the class period. I did walk by and ask him to see me after class. He bolted out the door the second the bell rang. What choice did I have? I wrote another referral.

The dance was interesting. I am really glad I went and chaperoned. It was so good for me to see my students outside my classroom in an environment where I wasn't responsible to make sure everyone was learning. The kids had a great time. The DJ was awesome. It was like watching a reality show on MTV. These kids are so talented with their dance moves and little grown up grooves! Some of them could have been R rated, but that's what I was there for. Did the cupid shuffle with a couple of my kids and boy did I feel old! They were saying, "Miz D, Miz D, you gotta shimmy like dis." I think that is how rumors get started! (Movin' like diz)