I know everyone is hanging on the edge of his/her seat (everyone is a singular pronoun, and the currently correct usage is either his/her or to alternate now and then; everyone should take out his book, everyone remembered her pencil, and etc.), waiting for the First Day Quiz answers.
First Day Quiz Question One:
What was the most common computer issue your gallant narrator had to fix for people yesterday, during our one prep day?
a) printer not working
b) mouse not working
c) software that used to be there isn’t any more
d) monitor resolution
e) can’t play dvd’s
Answer: d. While all of the above were things I had to deal with, believe it or not, screen resolution was my number one complaint. When IST reimaged our computers over the summer, they must have changed the default desktop size. All day long it was, “How do I make my fonts bigger? I can’t see my icons.” Guess our staff IS getting a bit long in the tooth.
First Day Quiz Question Two:
How many kids whom I flagged for needing (a lot of) extra reading help, were also recommended for AVID (in 7th grade for Pete’s sake)?
a) 0
b) 1
c) 2
d) 3
e) 4
Answer: d. As I started looking to see if any of these kids were already in EL reading (there were a lot of Latino surnames), I realized the three of the kids near the bottom were not only not in a reading class or an EL class, they were in AVID! How is a kid who can barely read going to take Cornell notes? OMG! This issue could be another whole post by itself.
First Day Quiz Question Three:
How old was the sixth grader who was enrolled in my first period class?
a) 9
b) 10
c) 11 1/2
d) 13 1/2
e) 15
Answer: d. As I was looking through my class lists, I noticed that I had a boy and a girl in the same class with the same last name. Hmmm. Twins? Haven’t had twins in awhile (since the year I had 3 sets). And nowadays they don’t usually end up in the same class. So I look on PowerCheese to check the birth dates. Waitaminnit? The girl is 13 1/2? The boy is 12. Wha? Why are they in the same class? I go to the counselor, who’s never heard of the girl. She checks the system. Wha? The girl went back to Mexico in 2008, and never got taken out of the system. And she was still in 6th grade! The scheduling software just gave her a generic schedule (without an elective, since there was nobody to fill out the request card). She was literally a ghost in the machine.
First Day Quiz Question Four:
How many doughnuts did mrC eat yesterday?
a) None. He wouldn’t do that to his body.
b) One. Just a little taste; couldn’t resist the pink frosting/rainbow sprinkles.
c) Two. There were maple bars too.
d) Three. There was another rainbow sprinkle one under the glazed.
e) Four. That last plain one looked so lonely at lunch time.
Answer: e. I cannot lie. Well I won’t anyway. The scary part is that if there were any more left at lunch, I would have eaten them too. D’oh! I haven’t gone into a doughnut shop and bought doughnuts in over 20 years, but free doughnuts are a whole ‘nother matter.
First Day Quiz Question Five:
What/who did mrC inject with epinephrine, practicing with the EpiPen?
a) himself
b) Nurse Maureen
c) an orange
d) a practice dummy
e) our principal
Answer: c. Our school nurse (whom we share with 5 other schools…yeah I know…) had a whole bunch of dummy EpiPens for the (10 minute) training. At first nobody would test them on her (see!) own outer thigh, because nobody believed they were dummies. C’mon. Then when everyone starts asking if there will be one in every one of the girl’s classrooms (jeeze Louise, she’s carrying one!), Nurse Mo says that each patient is limited to two. “But why?” Now we have to school them that epinephrine is a major ingredient in meth. Oh.
Then I got to jab an orange with a real one.
Glad you are updating your site once again. I’ve been reading it for a few years now and always enjoy your sense of humor and excellent teaching ideas. Even though I am not teaching English any more (I get to do electives now – drama and journalism) I still keep up with your posts. (I do miss teaching The Outsiders; don’t miss grading all those papers.
Have a good school year and hello from Alaska.
Thanks for the kudos. I got really lazy this summer. It actually feels pretty good getting back in the saddle, as they say. Thanks again for reading!