A New Year for new strategies for success!

So that is what that button is for!
I typed this post Friday night, but Saturday, when I went to post in on the Internet, James told me the cable modem was not working and that Monday I should take it back to the cable company. I had cleaned up the house Saturday morning and I had moved the computer stuff around, but I didn’t think about that at the time. Because I keep detention on Monday I told James I would do it Tuesday (today). This morning when I went to disconnect it so I could return it, I noticed this little button switch thing. I pushed it and magically all the little lights came on. So long story short, this is from Friday, but because I am stupid it wasn’t available for the three of you to read until today (Tuesday).
The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius
New year, new start, renewed energy… …but, the same old principal (still no pal o’ mine). However, apparently the new year brought her new strategies in the fight to raise our school’s level from a two to a four. For our first staff development our principal started calling out months and dates and asking us to sit in groups accordingly if our birthday fell between these dates. I covertly said to my MTC colleague (and sometimes cohort) that if she started some sort of astrology crap than I definitely was leaving. However, even I had no idea exactly how far she was going to take it because the heading on the agenda just said, “What we have in common.” After a few hours of reading crap about each of the twelve astrological signs—long detailed signs that talked about everything from what people like to eat for breakfast to what they like to wear to bed (a slight exaggeration). The detailed descriptions where rather long, she handed one to me, which although it was the sign I was born under, I didn’t identify any more or less with than any of the other 11 signs. I was very proud of myself for pronouncing all of my words right, a feat which few if any of the other selected 12 managed to do (I am adding philanthropical and Aries—pronounced areas at my school—to my list of words including incentives, itenary, etc. that teachers at my school are banned from using!). After all of the signs had been read and discussed our principal, a former math and science teacher, told us that intelligence tests and interest inventories are expensive and time consuming to administer and decipher and so maybe we should just look at our students birthdays to truly understand how to help them. And yes, she did actually refer to the age we live in as the Age of Aquarius once. I am still in awe (not from her suggestion, but of the fact that she actually made it to where she is in the first place)!
I pledge allegiance to the flag…
Occasionally, when the moment strikes her, our principal gets on the intercom during our Reading Renaissance program and leads the students in the pledge of allegiance. Sometime she asks other people to lead it. So far the only thing I have learned is that both the principal and the school secretary do not know the entire pledge of allegiance!
R-E-S-P-E-C-T or Rebel Without a Cause
My students have no idea what respect is. They like to throw out these broad statements such as “you have to give respect, to earn respect” and yet they have no idea what respect actually means. For example, if I ask a student to quit talking, they think that I am being disrespectful to them—if I am allowed to talk when I want, then why can’t they. If I give them detention for talking or being disrespectful then they yell at me that I have no right to call them disrespectful because I have done nothing to earn their respect. Many of my students have a horribly disrespectful attitude, but they don’t have anything to back it up. If you look at them wrong or don’t say good morning to them because you were talking to another adult at the time then you are disrespecting them (despite the fact that they interrupted you) and that seems to be enough reason for them to say and do whatever they want. I am getting really tired of this attitude, but I don’t know how to combat it. I am starting to realize more than ever that it isn’t a teacher they need, but parents.
I’ve got the no door blues (and possible lawsuit)
The other teacher at my school who has a room situation like mine—a gaping hole instead of a door and a door exiting from our room to the rear of the building—had a computer keyboard stolen from his room the Friday we left for Christmas break. It was announced during our faculty meeting (after the astrology lesson) that this item had gone missing and that this teacher would be required to pay for the keyboard in question. I had previously told the assistant principal, whom I have a good relationship with, that if anything went missing out of my room, then I will not be held accountable since the district cannot provide me with a door and there are three after school programs that our school host that last until between 6:30 and 8:00 at night. If they think I am going to stay at school every night until 8:00 at night to guard their stuff, when nobody guards my stuff, then they are sadly mistaken. I have bought quite a bit of stuff for my room and much of it has been vandalized, broken or stolen. If they cannot be held accountable for my stuff and cannot reimburse me for my stuff then I am afraid I cannot be expected to do so for them. Most of the stuff that is in my cramped room doesn’t work. Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to worry about the stuff that the district placed in my room. The things I let my students use the computer for could be done in the school’s computer lab with a lot less trouble than they become in my room. It is very difficult to effectively manage a class of active 7th grades and carefully supervise three students on the computers at the same time. My students don’t all know how to use computers very well, although they have demonstrated a tremendous talent for downloading viruses, and breaking things on the computers. It is a huge disruption for me to have to go log a student on to the computer (three passwords—the computer technician added them because I do not have a door to prevent students from playing around on them after I leave the building) so they can take an Accelerated Reading test during my learning strategies class while I am supposed to be helping 21 other students do other things. Yes, I think my classroom, class and, indeed, my life would be a lot easier if they would relieve me of my precious technology (previous hand picked savior for our children as deemed by our principal, before her horoscope told her otherwise of course) before on of my students’ attempts to.
Africa: country, county or continent?
I somehow became responsible for our team’s interdisciplinary unit. While the word team does not seem to have any ‘I’s in it, it apparently has a lot of ‘U’s, as in you do this, and you do this, etc. An interdisciplinary unit, for those of you who are not familiar with the concept, is a group of lessons on one topic or theme that our principal mandates each teacher find an aspect of to teach on the same selected days (normally scheduled around times when visitors are expected in the building). We are required to decorate our rooms, to make our principal look good, and our students just love the whole experience. In fact, when they found out we were starting on ours this week the groans actually drowned out the noise from the class next door for a few seconds. This will be our third such unit and each of the last two times at least one student (who didn’t apparently understand what an interdisciplinary unit was) complained about having to learn about the same old boring stuff four times in the same day. The decorations outside my lack of a door lasted a whole 30-minutes before someone defaced them. I really don’t like doing things just for show and especially hate having to repeat something that has already proved ineffective. Sorry for the digression, but anyway, once again I was singled out to come up with the theme for our team’s interdisciplinary unit. Since our math teacher is currently teaching a unit on geometry, I decided we could do “Around the World in Eight Days”. No it is not a typo. Although our students have exhibited a stubborn ignorance of other countries and cultures, none of us want to spend 88 days trying to convince them that Mexico is not the same thing (or anywhere close) as the South American continent. Today I gave them a brief overview of the seven continents and regions of the world so that they could make a more educated selection of which "county" (also not a typo) to do their report on. This brought us to the argument that Africa is a continent, not a country and that there is a difference between the word county and the word country. Even after my brief geography lesson, when I passed around a list of the countries they could choose from (any of 192 except the USA) students kept raising their hand and asking me why Africa and Europe weren’t on the list. Oh well, at least they are learning something about Social Studies for once. I learned today through a conversation over lunch with one of my students that in Social Studies that day they were playing tug of war and basketball to demonstrate their knowledge of teamwork.
Parents are a scream
Starting with the first day back, so far I have had to call parents almost every night about their student’s behavior. You never know who’s phone number you are calling (aunt, mother, grandmother) or what their name is and many times you get an answering machine or voice mail service. If I have to leave a message then I always start off with my name, the name of the school I work at, and the name of the student I am calling about. Apparently, in response to one of these calls I had a very irate woman call me on my drive home one afternoon. I could barely understand a word she was saying. I told her I was driving home and advised her that I would call her back when I reached home. She started yelling that I had called her number and she wanted to know why and she wanted to know now! I politely asked her the name of her student and she listed three different names (first names only). The only name she said that belonged to one of my students actually belonged to two of my students, so I asked the women the girl’s last name. She actually had to think about her own daughter’s last name—there was like a full minute pause (but then again, when you have three students in the seventh grade!?!). I told her why I had called her cell phone and she calmed down when she found out I was just notifying her of her daughter’s detention. Then, without hanging up or closing the conversation, she starts yelling at somebody. At first I thought she was yelling at me, but after a while it was obvious that she was yelling at one of her children. I stayed on the line, thinking she might return to our conversation. Eventually, I just hung up—hoping I could blame it on poor cell phone coverage if she called up. I just can’t imagine treating a child like that or having a parent like that.