A Day in the Life...

After a tumultuous week of school, today we had a well needed break.

In the morning I gathered my class for a "team" meeting, where I thought we should address some classroom climate issues. I usually like to start things like this off with the question: What's working in our classroom? Today I had to dig pretty deep to list some things that work most of the time. I stretched a little and talked about how I've noticed an increased amount of teamwork and helping each other out with schoolwork. After we made a small (but meaningful) list of the things that are working in class I moved on to the more uncomfortable topic of: What's not working? Fearing the worst I geared myself up to hear how I am a horrible teacher and how much they wish I was male (My class of mostly boys really crave a positive male roll model). I was quite surprised when one of the kids eagerly raised his hand and said "Ms. Fuller, Mavis Beacon's just not working!" The whole class agreed that our typing program is just not cutting it. And they're right, Mavis Beacon sucks.

When I asked what else wasn't working I heard nothing but the sound of crickets. It is quite possible that my students don't realize that throwing tantrums in the middle of class, and throwing pencils (and chairs) at the math teacher are not acceptable behaviors for 14-18 year olds. Strange. Anyway, luckily we had this discussion, now I'm sure all our classroom strife will be solved....

Conversation of the Day-
Student-"Ms. Fuller, you look like a cop."
Me- "Really? I've never seen a cop wear high heals and a dress. Seems like it would be hard to chase criminals."
Student- "No, not that kind of cop, a lady cop."
Me- "Huh?"
Student- "Come on Ms. Fuller, haven't you ever seen SVU Miami?"
Me- "No."
Student- "All the lady cops wear dresses like that, you know, the detectives on the murder scenes."
Me-" Hmmm, If I were a cop I wouldn't want to get blood on this dress."