Thursday was Back to School Night. Early again this year. Takes the pressure off for knowing names at least. My first two years as a credentialed teacher, I didn’t have Back to School nights. I worked as a sub (which is how I got this gig) and “teaching” independent study for a high school district in “da hood.” (Since the program got paid by the kid, we sometimes literally went out and knocked on doors of dropouts and kids who had just stopped coming to school–as long as they showed up to our program once a week and did their paperwork, the district got paid like they were regular students at the high school. We were even encouraged to award high school credits as “incentives” for showing up.) So this was BTSN performance number 20. And in honor of the occasion, and since the wife was going to be in the audience (still didn’t wow her–more on that later), and since I suddenly got a little inspiration on the bike ride back to school for the gig, AND since my band teacher buddy had a spare geetar for me at the last minute (in tune even), I decided to bust a move and do
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I think I figured out why I hate Twitter. I like the details. One hundred forty something characters ain’t enough to give the details. I want the details, baby. The details: First Day Scream As I “tweeted” yesterday, I had forgotten to explain to my new homies… (Aside: Our first period is ten minutes longer than the others, and that extra ten minutes is referred to as Home Base. The name is left over from when it used to be a separate class that was thirty minutes long and was supposed to foster that “connection” that is so important in the “middle school model.” Oh yeah, and we were supposed to teach citizenship and coping skills and whatnot. Now it’s when we listen to the bulletin poorly read, collect magazine sales, and-in my class anyway–watch nutty videos. But I never could bring myself to call it Home Base; it sounds so…so…geeky. The old school meaning of geeky, not the tech-savvy version. So I have always referred to it as Homie Base, and my first period crew as my homies.) …why it has been a thing with all my homies over the past few years to scream when we are asked
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Thursday was my 18th Back to School Night here. Some parents have seen my BTSN act a couple of times; I had all five kids from one family, so they got to see the bit a few times. I usually ad-lib most of it–I only have to kill 10 minutes each period–and still usually manage to say (mostly) the same things every year. The night before mine, I attended my boy’s BTSN, and his teacher this year taught for several years at my school before moving down to the elementary level, and I had been in his junior high classroom many times. But his persona for the parents was decidedly different than the one he uses to teach. We’re talking PowerPoint and a tie. It was so…professional. It did keep him less scattered than I can sometimes get during these things, and he had a lot more time to fill. I got to thinking… (I know; don’t hurt yourself.) There was no way I was going to use PowerPoint, and I don’t even own a tie. But… Pretty much on my way to the gig, I came up with a new bit. I wanted to go with an acronym. (Aside: Technically an
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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
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OK. This time for real. Daily, baby. Well maybe… It seems like I wait longer and longer each year to get ready for school. We started today. I went in Monday and started hooking things up, but most of that day was spent in meetings, checking out our district’s latest software purchase, DataDirector (more on this later in the post), and hounding IST to fix all the stuff they broke over the summer (they were actually very nice about it…except for…well anyway…) 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 You’d think I might have started earlier this year, what with teaching eighth grade for the first time since 03/04 and all, but you’d be wrong. I was at Refugio Beach all last week, instead of getting ready. Oh well. Our district has subscribed to a new web-based data service. IST, it seems, has been spending their a good portion of their time entering three years’ worth
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We had an open mouth quiz on chapter 8 today. One class has several boys who have a new phrase they’re trying out. Personally, I sort of like it. 4) On p127, we get an example of what seems to be foreshadowing. What is it? a) When Two-Bit says that Darry will kill him if Pony’s really sick. b) When Two-Bit says Darry could be a Soc. c) When Pony says he has a helpless feeling. d) When Two-Bit calls Pony chicken. e) When Pony says he’ll be well by tonight. “OK, number four. What’s foreshadowing?” The class takes care of that one for me. Most of them laugh, and one says, “I was wrong.” (Pony’s line at the end of chapter three, and a beauty example for them of foreshadowing.) “Oh yeah. Ok, so it’s C, right?” “True that.” “Number six. Darry, I mean Dally (they always mix up those names), right?” “True that.” (me, doing some “refocusing” of a gentleman off to the side) “‘Clark,’ could you focus your comments on the questions? Open mouth only applies if that mouth is talking about the questions.” “True that.” “And I think we’re done with that line, for today at [...]
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