Megalopolis

Well…. it’s break. This is the time that, as a student, you have one priority, and that is nothing at all. I suppose thats no priorities. You sit around, a vapid waste of sweatpants, until you are reasonably allowed to begin dreading going back to school. I have 2 weeks off, but there are no sweatpants in sight. Somehow between last year and this, I forgot how to not do anything, which has lead me to create travel plans to 5 different places, probably spending more time in airports than in bed. I’m alright with that, until i remember how much SCHOOL stuff i want to accomplish.

I want to remake my tracker so I can observe mastery by SLE and that I can group each objective by strand, whereas I currently have the “at one point you took a test on this and i entered the objective into the tab” strategy. While this serves its purpose, a considerable amount of work goes into finding the exact piece of data I wanted. This new tracker will be a life saver in terms of being able to quickly see where my kids are with each skill. Unfortunately, it will take YEARS to create. In the words of my French tour guide on the way to the eiffel tower, “Fortunately the eiffel tower is one kilometer away. Unfortunately, we’re moving at around 1 kilometer per hour.”

I also want to rather seriously plan my science and social studies units so that I… actually teach science and social studies. Currently I have 19 kids who don’t know what Native Americans are and think that Abraham Lincoln was the democratic nominee for president this year. We don’t know much, but we do know that we LOVE BARACK OBAMA. How can I use him to teach… colonial history?

When I was younger, I used to make fun of my mom or dad (both teachers) when they would lose their voice. I would laugh or say “I can’t hear you, what?” until they thought it was “not funny” anymore.

Suffice it to say, karma is a bitch. I have had no voice for 2.5 days now for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. I feel fine, with the exception of the fact that my throat feels like its on fire. Highlights of this disappearing voice have been:

1) Charades- Acting out, for the most part, the fact that I was kidnapped by aliens and in exchange for letting me keep my life, they took my voice. I would say I had at least 4 kids legitimately fooled until I demonstrated how they took my voice (I pretended to put a straw in Ashleigh’s head and suck out her voice…. hilarious noises ensued…)

2) My children’s remedies… Jasmine- “My pastor says you should drink honey and lemon.” James- “My aunt says you should drink whiskey.”

3) Minnie Mouse- Discovering that when I get frustrated at my kids, my voice rises to totally un-interpretable levels. Randy asked 7 there’s-no-such-thing-as-a-dumb-question questions and I just stared at him, then i started squeaking so much as to elicit a, “Randy just stop, Miss D sounds so WEIRD…like a mouse.” Laughter for probably 10 minutes afterwards.

4) teacher presence- I can sneak up on kids SO much better without my loud voice. In fact, since my voice has disappeared, apparently my footsteps have softened and kids will keep up private conversations til I am REALLY close to their face, at which point I whisper, “I need you to stop.” I think it might be a joke? Zavian did it twice, but he also told me he loves the smell of my chapstick. Perhaps that is crossing boundaries…

5) what pink slip? - I cannot physically make pink slip calls home, so I just send home “I believe in the potential your child possesses but chooses to ignore” notes.

Either way, I’m taking tomorrow afternoon off in an attempt to score some sort of medicinal lozenge for my throat and just in general, not talk for….at least 4 hours. Wish me luck… those of you who know me, I will probably just walk around the house talking to myself.

But that’s not what’s important, what matters is that I’m (gasp) having a good week! Seriously, today was the most productive writing day i’ve EVER had. We wrote letters to Obama, who my kids ADORE, so it was easy to motivate them. We had to follow proper format and also tell him about our school and then ask him questions. I’m going to share my favorite one, with the preface that she did not speak a word to me for an hour before because of her attitude. I’m so excited to talk to her tomorrow.

Dear President Obama,
How are you? Are you glad that your are the president? I know I am glad! I want almost all teh store to be lower priceses because they are to high. How are you and your wife and kids? How well do you love your wife? Important questions! I’m soooo glad that George Bush isn’t the president anymore. He didn’t even try to stop the war. what a same of him. I don’t even know why he was eleted for President. I think you will make a better president. I am doing good in school! But i need to get rid of my attitude quick! Anyway I’m supposed to be talking about you. What’s wrong with the country today? How are you going to fix these problems about the motors? If something is wrong with the motors then almost everyone will lose their jobs. Mr President, can you come visit our school one day when you have any freetime from your work? If you can then bring your wife and kids .I would be so amazing to see you. Our room number is 305. Man I hope you can make it, and maybe you can take us for a ride or something in your limo. I hope your driver does not get upset with 19 students in you car. It would be sweet whenever whenever your driver get through! I am just playing President Obama! You already know what’s up. Tell your wife I said Hi, and your kids. I’m really looking foward to see you and your family . Well let me go. You have a lot of work to do! See you later, Obama, Obama, Obama!
P.S. I know it will be hard work for you! Sincerely, Daneisha

that, my friends, is why this week is amazing…

I refuse to be even hopefully optimistic, but today was the first “first day back” after anything, a weekend, a holiday, a day off, a sick day, a sub day, whatever, where it wasn’t MISERABLE. Praise jesus, i do not know what happened but we got through the day and earned 9 minutes. For that to mean anything, you should know that we can earn 10 (or more) minutes in a day, and they earned 2 and lost 3 in addition to their normal ten. To put this in perspective, a week before our halloween party, we were at -22 minutes. And we can EARN 10 minutes a day. So, it’s impressive when they earn anything above 5 minutes and it’s the norm when we lose massive amounts of minutes. Our party is the 18th. We did math problems today to realize we could have 2.5 hours of party, so we’ll see…

Regardless of superstition or constant vigilance, I feel… good. Before break, I planned out my last 3 weeks, so hopefully that will come in handy. I’ve got a bunch of tests to give, a few skills days here and there, and the movie Elf has been ordered and will soon be delivered to my house so that I can watch it on our party day. Because even if my kids don’t earn a party, I’ll just send them all to ISS and watch it myself. I love Elf more than student achievement. NOT, just kidding TFA, don’t fire me.

I’m sure there is planning that could be done or tracking I could do, but I feel like the most effective use of my time would be to fold my laundry and read the Hobbit. I think this might be what it’s like to… have a little free time? I’m not sure, I’m sure I’ll regret it tomorrow.