Friday, August 31, 2007

A record

Today, whilst my darling new students in fifth period English were presenting their "Where He's/She's From" poems (ones they wrote about a classmate they interviewed), one of the students in the class was screwing around. I told Stewie (not his real name, of course) to knock it off, but he just kept making faces and shadow puppets with his hands instead of paying attention to the students at the front of the class.

Then, as a boy was reading his rather good poem to the class, and everyone was listening, Stewie ripped off a fart that could be heard bouncing off the foothills behind our school.

He then acted shocked that I would send him outside for a natural action such as his.

And so, the referrals have begun.


Yeah, I know, I'll laugh about it later. But dang... if he's doing this five days into the school year, what's he going to get up to by Christmas?

Monday, August 20, 2007

Last Day of Freedom

So, tomorrow? Back to school.

On the 21st of August? On the frickin' 21st of August?

You have got to be kidding me.

Remember when school started after Labor day? Well, we're having none of that any more.

Of course, the weather's just heated up beyond comprehension. My classroom gets sun on two exposed walls, so that causes... um... parboiling to begin happening in the early afternoon. After a few days of it, it's unbearable. At home, we leave our windows open at night, so it can cool down the house; not at school. Of course we can't do that.

So the heat-sink that are my classroom walls just grab hold of that solar energy and wait to release it on my students each day.

A few years ago, I complained that the fan system (we have no AC) in my room wasn't working. Or that it was working, but only when I turned on the heat. That wasn't going to do. I brought in fans from home, but still, my room was in the low 90's for three days in a row.

They finally came to address the problem.

And removed the thermostat.


Yeah. That's how my district runs.

I'm going to go take my dog to the beach.

Happy new school year folks.