I can’t figure out what’s going on. We’re at least 3 or 4 chapters behind where we usually are. I haven’t been trying out that much new material. One of the science teachers made a comment the other day about how many times we’ve had weird (read: shortened period) schedules this year. Let’s see… Extended Advisory Schedule: First period 20 minutes longer, all others four minutes shorter. Normally our first period is 10 minutes longer than the other classes. That extra ten minutes is technically called Home Base (my crew calls it Homies) or Advisory. This is what’s left of our Advisory program which was part of the whole middle school idea that was so popular 10 years ago or so. We used to have an extra 1/2 hour period in the morning where we were supposed to do team building and character building and values building and all sorts of construction projects. That was when they changed the sign from junior high to middle school. (Before Advisory it was an entire period devoted to something called Teen Skills. Don’t even get me started on that.) We’ve had four or five of these, ostensibly to cover the school handbook. Uh
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We finally had a regular schedule today (54 minute periods). Monday was our weekly TCT (Teacher Collaboration Time)/Late Start Schedule (43 minute periods – the kids start at 9:30 instead of 8:20; not as collaborative as hoped) and yesterday we had the ASB election assembly (assembly schedule: 47 minute periods). (Aside) As ASB election assemblies in junior high go, this one was pretty good. But… Back in the day (2 years ago), when we actually still had a full time drama teacher on staff (she retired after almost 30 years and they didn’t replace her), the election assembly was always jazzed up with short skits that promoted recycling or previewed the upcoming production. I really miss those skits, as well as having actual drama classes at our school. NCLB. Bah. So this year, it was the usual intros by the “campaign managers” (I keep waiting for one of them to bring the candidate a towel, or fan him Elvis stylie, during the speech), and then strings of empty promises (more activities, loosened cell phone restrictions, soda machines, “listening to your ideas”). But most of them were relatively well prepared, and one even quoted Gandhi and JFK. There was the obligatory
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This afternoon, I asked my friend and colleague, in his experiences with junior high, how many times he could remember seeing two seventh grade boys hugging. Sincerely. “Like a man-hug, or a real one?” “What’s a man hug?” “You know, you start out with the soul shake, and then you pull in and sorta bump chests, and then the other hand sorta slaps the back.” “Not that kind.” “Ummm. None.” “I knew it. It was a first for me too!” Milk and Cheese, the “True That” boys, were at it again. They were moving their desks closer together (again), like they like to do, and jabbering nonsense. Nothing major, and technically it was before class, but I said, “Well the quarter does end Friday, and I change up the seating chart every quarter, so next week I get to move you guys far, far apart.” One of our recent vocabulary words was crestfallen. I should have taken a picture of them to use as an example. Milk holds out both arms pleadingly (and it if it wasn’t sincere, he should be an actor) and says, “But…But…But… What about The Team?” OMG. The class is dying. Half of them are happy [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)