Friday, September 26, 2008

My dog is rather gay and it appears submissive . Elias' new friend is named Jake and appeared to be a corgi.

More on Books

Remember how I said that my students had little respect for books?

Well yesterday a student actually threw an encyclopedia at me.

I love this weird school.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Human Resources

I have still not been paid here in public school land and had to leave my class room yesterday to ty to sort the ness out. Needless to say my kids ran amok and I am not happy.

Grumble.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Mackenzie first day of school

Friday, September 5, 2008

For the Love of Books

Ok I nearly eviscerated two students first period today. They put their textbooks on the floor. Roughly; as in they dropped them because, "they are too heavy".

Now I love books. They are easily my most prozed possesions. I have schlepped them by the hundreds across country. It was actually gut wrenching to see the way my kids treat their textbooks. There is a decided and utter lack of reverence for any single object or classification of objects and I can't help but wonder whether this is due to the apparant lack of religion or even worse bastardized Pentacostalism of the few who are religous. It makes me reticent to bring any of my librrary in to the classroom

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Doors Opening ; Please Stand Clear of the Doors.

So school is roughly a half hour drive for me in the morning and then a 45 minute drive on the way home. It should be mentioned that I intensley dislike driving. I would much prefer any other mode of transportation. Biking or walking requires physical and mental engagement to some degree whereas driving involves merely mental occupation.

This morning I decided to take the mtro to work and it only took 45 minutes. Plus I got to scare the ghetto children by knittign on the bus. I'd much prefer spending an hour and a half knitting or grading papers then spending an hour and fifteen minutes driving so I think I'll be taking the Metro unless I am running late in the morning or need to haul something into or from school.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Shenadoah; 462

Well this was a distressing story in the Post today. I am amazed at how accurately they portrayed the complexity of ethnic/race relations in the Coal Region. It seems some high school football players got drunk and beat a Mexican guy to death in July. Life is not easy in the Coal Region for anyone but especially not for outsiders and Shenandoah is known as a rough little town. We avoided it if at all possible except for a few italian restaraunts and my karate lessons in middle school.

The Story.

School is Rolling Along

Well the 9th grade is a tiring entity but I made it through my first week in the school system without any of my kids exploding. This is a very distinct possibility on any given day. My class roster runs about 80 students of whom 60 have shown up and out of which only twenty have been here every day. The biggest challenge seems like it is going to be just getting students to come to school on a regular basis.

I was at a party a few nights ago and met a rather beautiful man who Teaches at Georgetown Day School , 36,000 a year for tuition, and who claimed that his students recieved as little attention from their parents as mine did. The difference of course being that his parents can afford to hire out their parental responsibilities where as mine are simply negligent and lack the fiscal resources to hide it under nanies and drivers.

Today we are learning about the basis of religion and early christianity. Tommorow we'll do map work and talk about the spread of Christianity and the medieval Church. It should eb noted that at the moment we have one copier for 50 teachers to use. The educators here are like starvation victims when it comes to paper; they hoard it in their rooms and carry around reams for use in the copier which is our fickle goddess bestowing favors on most but breaking down and damning other teacher's lesson plans to oblivion.