Wotta “week.” Considering how tired I am, I can’t believe it was only a three-day week – for some reason we had a 4-day weekend for Veterans’ day. And I done clean forgot that I was supposed to give the “District Benchmark Test #1″ (that’s a whole ‘nother post) by Friday. So we spent Wednesday darkening ovals to generate data for the district, AND there was a “multi-media” assembly that, amid the rock and rap, touted the beauty of trust and honesty (also: don’t do those things which I obviously can’t mention, because ads for them started appearing here). AND, yesterday was “parent visitation day.”
Whole lotta scare quotes today too.
Usually I get a pretty good turnout for these parent visitation days (it sounds like a Catholic holiday). Our previous principal (our present principal is an FNG, both to the job of principal AND to our school) instituted these as a sort of PR for parents. Many parents of ms’ers are more than a little leery of sending their little angels to the big bad junior high.
(You should have seen the reaction a few years ago when the district proposed making our school 6-8. OMG. You’d have thought we were sending their little lambs to the slaughter. Only six parents (district-wide) signed up, and they put the kibosh on the idea. Not that I was upset; I think middle school/junior high ought to be 7-9. That was also proposed at one point, but high school athletics nixed that one. But I digress, junior high stylie.)
Anyway, he figured that if we invited them in to see what goes on here, they might be more inclined to see this place for what it is: Disneyland. With shorter lines.
I like the idea, always have; my classroom door is always open. The more the merrier, I say. Really. I like to say that parents finally get to see their kids in their natural habitat, and I always get a few to jump with the timer. Usually I get 4 or 5 per period watching the show on these days.
This year? One. Not one per period. One. The turnout overall was way down. Not sure why. Maybe the short week? I even wore my good shoes.
And…
My dynamic duo, Milk and Cheese, effectively neutralized by the seating chart change, has been lobbying to move back closer together. Yesterday, we were reading in The Giver, chapter 16, where Jonas asks his parents if they love him. They reply that they “enjoy” him. Of course there is a lot of general laughter. Then Milk raises his hand and asks,
“Do you love us, Mr. C?”
“Oh, I would say I “enjoy” you. And your madcap antics. Most of the time.”
“You’d love us if me and Cheese were back together. You know you loved us back then.”
Lately, I’m sensing that the class actually misses M and C’s shenanigans a little bit.
“Let’s vote on whether Milk and Cheese can be reunited!”
“As I have said many times, you know this isn’t a democracy. However, I will admit, I occasionally miss the banter.”
“True that!”
“Occasionally.”
And…
We also had a quiz on chapters 14 and 15. One of the questions asked about how they decide which twin to release: #6. How do they usually decide which identical twin to release? a) The Birthmother decides. b) There’s a number system. c) Birthweight. d) Raffle King e) None of the Above.
Remember, it doesn’t really take a whole lot to amuse a seventh grader, and I knew they’d enjoy the joke, but there was a considerable delay in the reaction, as well as a wide variation in the response times. The quick ones are chuckling early. Then there are those saying, “What?” and the muttered answers of “Number six.” More of, “What? Number six what?” For some, it takes quite a while.
When everyone finally gets it, the speculation about the use of the King for choosing which twin to release was very entertaining.
“It’s be so cool if they had one big wall with the Raffle King, and the babies were watching and listening to the duh-duh-duh-duh, and then..”
“It’s actually seems a little sick to me.”
“Exactly. It’d be siiiick.” (FYI for noobs: That’s skater slang for really cool.)
Phew. See what I mean? And I left out the weird schedule today, with the Mars rover visiting, and my student aide thinking the bulletin announcement said that our principal was going to be playing Red Rover at lunch, and the kid who did the pee-pee dance, and…
Just another 3 days of junior high.
(50th Post! Woohoo!)
Wow! I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. Those parents that didn’t show up don’t know what they missed.