Aren’t I the neglectful blog owner? This has been quite a period of silence and I apologize for that. Let me assure you that time and energy that would have been used on WIT?!?!? has been redirected to important things like the first weeks of school.
Last year my building was in a quite a messy state at the beginning of the school year, what with the incomplete building addition and all. I was sharing a room with the art teacher and I wasn’t the only class in creative locations. That whole experience seems like it was a school year unto itself but it really was part of last year. Everyone was excited to be able to start this school year without the horrible interruption of construction. If wishes were horses…
We weren’t that lucky. You see, this year was my building’s turn to have the roof redone, a job that was desperately needed. The roofing company was supposed to start mere weeks after school finished last school year. If that had actually occurred, I think it would have been very likely that they would have been finished by day one of this school year. However, the roofers didn’t start then. They didn’t start until near the end of July and by the time it was time to school to start they had barely completed just one wing of the building. Thankfully, those where were displaced last year due to construction were unaffected this year (we had a new roof).
This year we started with two teachers being moved to temporary classrooms however we quickly discovered that the rooms around the rooms that were evacuated were not fit for a learning environments because of pounding, shaking ceilings, cussing workers and a nauseating tar odor. Trouble is we were out of extra rooms so we now we have two classes sharing a room, a class on the gym stage and a class in the computer lab next door to me. What a mess!
That, however is not the only mess at school. My fellow third grade teachers and I didn’t escape getting a little messy ourselves. When I got my first class list in late July (about the same time they started on the roof) I had 22 students in my class. A week later 26 which is fine because I have 13 computers which is enough for 26 students. Then I got to 27 students as did the other teachers. Now I had a problem and so did the district because the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has set the minimum standard for classroom size at 27 with a desirable standard of 22 in the third grade classroom. We were hoping that an additional teacher would be hired. We had our open house. I had a really good turn out, I only had two or three students not show, the other teachers had between 5 and 9 students not show. The next day our principal asked us to call students who did not come to open house to be sure that they were still going to be enrolled in our school. I got all but one of my missing students in the phone. The other teachers had similar experiences. We were then informed that one of the first grade teachers was going to have to move to third grade and that we had to create a new class quickly so that parents could be notified as soon as possible. Making the new class was easy for the other teachers. They just put the kids that didn’t show up to open house in the new class. I didn’t have that option. I somehow had to give up four or five students that I had already met. In the end there was no choosing, I had to do it randomly. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust the new teacher but as soon as I met the students there was an implied relationship and expectation there. It was an extremely difficult situation that I don’t want to have to face again.
Thankfully I had my classroom done well before the beginning of school so I was able to help move classrooms at the last minute.
School started and I really like my class. I have mentioned here before of the pattern that seems to have developed: a class that is more difficult to deal with, then a well behaved class and it alternates back in forth like that. Last year I had a good class but in the self management area… well, they weren’t earning any gold stars. This year’s class seems to be very good at self managing which is a good thing since I am implementing the use of computers in the class.
Despite the messy beginning, this is going to be a good year. At least for me.
Class dismissed!
In the most recent episode of Fox’s fast paced serial drama, Prison Break, escaped prisoner David “Tweener” Apolskis managed to travel from Chicago, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri. Being somewhat familiar with St. Louis, I made some notes on what was fact and was was fiction about St. Louis.
Upgrade: Monster House. What a wonderful movie. I really enjoyed it. The movie is an animated horror movie kinda geared for the pre-teen audience. Probably the most interesting thing about the movie is the direction. This movie has the most interesting camera angles and camera movements of any computer animated cartoon that I have ever seen. That being said, this movie isn’t for younger tikes. There are some frightening moments and jump scenes that could scare younger viewers. Additionally the characters deal with issues that would be thought of a pre-teen issues. With that warning I give Monster House an A-. Might be a good rental around Halloween if it is out on DVD by then.
