Shaddup Already!
2004-08-26
I love my students
Can I just say that I absolutely LOVE my students this year. Last year I enjoyed my students individually and on a personal level, but on a teaching level, they drove me insane. I had about 4 kids (out os 150) who regularly turned in their work. Those were also the only 4 kids who cared about the quality of their work. And if anything was out of the ordinary, they were shot for the entire day.This year I only have 2 kids who I am even concerned about behaviorally. A huge change from last year. Most of my kids do their work and most of them really care about their work. They may not like my class, but they do their work. That's so important and such a relief.
So I shouldn't have been surprised about today. Really, I shouldn't have, but I was.
When I got to school this morning the power was out. My first thought was "Please get it back on before the kids get here."
So then we find out that it may be more than 4 hours before we get power again, so now my hope of power being restored before homeroom is dashed. So I figure I will just suck it up and get through the morning as best as I can.
My kids came into homeroom and not a single one of them asked me to turn on the air conditioning. It was like they had made this amazing connection--if there's no power, there's no air. You don't know how special this is.
Then my next class actually worked! They did real work while the portable was only lit by emergency lights. They complained some about the heat, but not a single one of them yelled at me for not turning on the air. In-frickin-credible.
Although, my administrator did walk through my room at an inopportune time. I wanted to beg her to come back later, I would be working, really. But I couldn't do that.
At my school (and at many schools) the administrators pop into the classrooms all the time. I personally like it because they are a very real presence for the kids. This whole year I've been having really amazing lessons that are going extremely well and show off my prowess as a teacher. Does anyone bother to come in then? Oh no! They have to come in the one time I gave the kids an art project and I was sitting on my butt drawing. Yeah, that looks good.
This is the last year I have to teach before I qualify for continuing contract, i.e. tenure. I really, really want it. I would HATE to be put back on annual contract for a fourth year and it doesn't look that great for you. So I hope I'm doing a better lesson the next time she comes through.
