Sunday, December 17, 2006

Winding Down

The last couple of weeks have been the slowest weeks of my life. I hate reviewing...it's just a lot of repeating things you've already taught. Maybe I just don't know how to do it well. Exams are super-boring and involve a lot of sitting around or throwing in a movie during the random times we hold classes between exams. I did get to hang out and talk with some of my kids on Friday morning after their exam though. It was nice to find out more about their lives.

This coming week will be the worst. I'd much rather be stressed out and trying to cram a ton of material into these kids heads than waking up in the morning knowing the most productive thing I will do all day is grade exams. I'm sure it sounds silly to be complaining about a 21/2 day week where I don't have to teach, but I have to babysit and that's the worst. It all seems like it's being dragged out. I'm pretty sure that when I was in high school we went home early on exam days. Come to school, take your 2 exams, go home. Of course, they didn't have to feed us lunch....is that why we're stretching out these exams? To give them a free lunch? Or do we need more full school days for federal funding?

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Semester Review

When I think back over the semester, the one student who stands out is "Jimmy" (In the blue shirt, with the towel around his neck). The kid is huge...barely fits into his desk. At the beginning of the year, he was a discipline problem, talking constantly throughout my class. I think I called his house. The next day, without saying a word to me, he came in and sat in the one empty seat on the other side of the room and focused the entire period on what he should be doing. He now claims that the reason he moved that day was because he was cold, and the airconditioner doesn't blow as hard on the other side...but I'm still convinced either he or his wonderful aunt knew he needed to move away from the people he was talking to.

I've learned a lot about him since August. He's 18, he has a kid who's 4-5 years old and lives with HIM (not the mother), he's from Atlanta, he was on the football team, and he's probably the smartest kid I teach all day. He can barely write. His handwriting is sloppy, his grammar is poor, and his spelling is so bad, I wonder if he has a learning disability. Homework in my class is notetaking 4/5 nights a week. He has one of the highest grades in his class. He comes in for after school tutoring every now and then. He reads each paragraph out loud to me and then tells me what he's going to write in his notes. He's a very poor reader, but his comprehension of the text is off-the charts compared to my other kids. While I'm still trying to explain to the other kids the level 1 knowledge, he's asking me level 4 and 5 questions or explaining the abstract concepts of the text to his classmates.

He's failing his other classes, which is bad because he's trying to graduate and his wonderful aunt is pushing him toward college. Again I wonder about the learning disability because he has a lot of trouble in math. His aunt seemed ok with getting him tested when another teacher mentioned it in a conference, but I don't think it's happened yet. I would never bring it up as a first-year teacher, and also since he's so close to graduating.

For some unknown reason he loves history, he loves my class, and he's successful at it. I watch him come in every day, the gentle giant, 3 times my size. "Jimmy, tuck your shirt in." "Yes ma'am Mrs. D." Always respectful, always kind and helpful.

It's funny. I sat down to write this blog about my experiences this semester, but instead I've written 4 paragraphs about "Jimmy". I guess that's kind of the point. After the hell that other people call October and November, and the ridiculousness of the first few weeks of school, somehow all I want to do is tell you about the few that are wonderful. It was a shift that took place during Thanksgiving when I realized I missed "my kids". My family knows more about my students than their parents probably do. I have one who calls me "Mama D." now. I guess my skin has gotten thicker, the silly referrals have become just that...silly, and the few I know I can reach are becoming the highlight of my day.

Don't get me wrong. A-4 is hell on earth and if it weren't for 2 for 1 margaritas on Wednesday nights I wouldn't live through the week, but thank God it's B-day tomorrow and I get to see Jimmy.