Hedgetoad Teaching

So, my AP class wrote personal biographys from the point of view of a personal object. Some were wickedly good, some were boring as all-get-out... but none were terrible. That was a nice switch. I was also informed today that the syllabus for an English class at the local community college had been seen... and they were covering prepositions, so why was my AP course writing all these essays? They then spontaneously broke into the "preposition song" that everyone learned in 8th grade. Why is it that no one can remember the song in 9th and 10th grade?

I'm still waiting for things to settle down - so far, no luck. I'm still running around trying to keep up with grading and planning. I don't know why this year is so crazy, but I suspect it's all the extras I keep piling on. I'm advising a club, attending more meetings and doing home hospital for an ill student. Plus, I keep assigning writing assignments (like a fool!) which then have to be graded... did I mention that I have about 25 more students this year? For some reason the school is practically bursting at the seams. More are enrolling every day. We keep hearing every year that the population is on a downswing, but every year the classes are over 35 students on the first day. I guess someone is broadcasting how great we are all over the county. Yesterday, I went out to my aunt's to attend "Saginaw Day." It's a non-professional logger competition in Brooklyn, WA. I'll bet you didn't even know there was a Brooklyn in WA did you? Apparen...

With the first week under our collective belt, things have calmed down a bit. We had several other classroom changes in the school. Lots of lost kids and anquished cries of "unfair!" Hopefully, we've seen the last of them. In the meantime, I'm playing Whack-A-Mole with my new class... they are not happy to have a teacher who believes nap time stopped being a school activity in Kindergarten. Every time I get one student on task, two more start. It's started to lessen as they realize that I won't just ignore them. Maybe in a couple of weeks, it will be up to par. This first week, I had the students write a story of their reading history. Hardest part? Getting the students to write a story - not another essay. Everyone has been so focused on writing essays, that students don't really understand how to alter their writing. We talked a lot of the differences and surpise endings... I'm really hoping that some of the stories will have surprise endings. Lucki...

It always amazes me that I somehow managed to attend and graduate from high school in relatively smooth process, now that I see it from the other side. How were master schedules planned without computers? And why did it seem to work so much better? Why is it that we're told ever year about declining student population and still end up with classes of 38 without loosing any teachers or sections? I'm a tad bitter at the moment. One of my AP classes was taken away and switched for an Sophomore class. Why? Oh, because I said last spring that anyone who hadn't completed the summer reading would be removed from class. This was before discovering that there would be no classes for those passive-agressive slackers to move into. Of course, in an effort to ensure they "couldn't" take the course, they just didn't bother to read over the summer. You want to see a freaked out teenager? Tell a 4.0 student that there's now, no way for them to achieve an A in their En...