Donate Now I forgot to mention this yesterday, but there’s no school today or tomorrow because of Rosh Hashanah. Woohoo! Also, only one day after posting about Donors Choose, my overhead transparency proposal has been fulfilled (thanks, Martini!) and Ms. L’s lab coat proposal is one step closer to completeion (thanks, Mariel!). I think it’s…

Donate Now Today was kind of nice, because I served notices to all my students that are currently failing with a note that read: “You can make up this work with me today during lunch, today after school, or next year when you are in seventh grade science again.” Almost all of them opted for…

I’m writing from Boston, woohoo! I hightailed it out of school at exactly 3:00 and made it to Chinatown in time for the 4:00 bus, and now I have about 36 hours to pretend I’m still an MIT student. Fridays are always frustrating because the kids are ready for the weekend and get annoyed if…

I’m starting to look forward to the hours between 3 and 5, since the students who stay after with me are so sweet. Today I had my difficult class for the two-hour double period from Hell, and the whole time I just kept counting down the time until they left and my after school buddies…

I am in a unusually good mood today, I think it has to do with the fact that the twins stayed after with me until 5:30 helping me and being adorable. One of them brought me three Oreos and presented them very ceremoniously, along with a “I meant to bring you five but I got…

Despite my continuing struggles with classroom management, today was actually pretty good for the following reasons: I got an elevator key! You need one to call the elevator (so the students can’t use it), and so far I’ve had to rely on the kindness of nearby teachers to get my cart between floors. I also…

My best guess is that it’s drink Red Bull and snort Pixie Stix, because when they come in on Monday they are REVVED UP. I even had my first fight today, it was a girl vs. a boy in the hallway coming in from recess. Fights are crazy, because once it starts the involved parties…

Today seemed like it would never end. I’m still sick, and when I woke up I seriously considered calling for a sub before I remembered that I don’t have any sub lesson plans on file in the office like I’m supposed to, so I can’t. Ugh. It was funny to see how the kids reacted…

I’ve been waking up with a sore throat for the past few days, so it wasn’t too surprising this morning when I woke up with a full blown cold. It’s difficult enough dragging myself out of bed and to a full day of having the life sucked out of me by preadolescents when I’m feeling…

Tonight was my school’s “Curriculum Night,” in which the parents are invited to the school to meet the teachers and see what their kids are learning. Out of the whole seventh grade (~120 students), a total of five parents showed up. Five. I stayed at school until 7:00 for five parents, only two of which…

Ridiculous child of the day: Kid who put sharpened pencils between his clenched fingers so they were pointing outwards, screamed “I AM WOLVERINE!”, and tried to attack the kid next to him. Adorable child of the day: Kid who, when I asked if anyone had any questions about the Do Now problem, just about fell…

Today was my tenth day of teaching and my first pay day! It was pretty exciting to get my first grown-up pay check, even if it wasn’t for all that much… Over the weekend I gave my kids a worksheet to fill out about their goals for the year, and it included a question on…

For homework I had them do the first three steps of the scientific method: Write a question about something they’ve observed in the world around them, write a hypothesis about what might explain it, and write an idea for an experiment that would help prove their hypothesis true or false. This one boy, who is…

It was another tough day today. For my two roughest classes, I prepared an intense speech about expectations and my new policy of laying the smackdown, complete with an inspirational PowerPoint (set to “I Can” by Nas) that showed how much time we waste over the course of the year if we waste 3 minutes…

Today was pretty rough in terms of student behavior. But I would like to share the following response I got to yesterday’s homework, which was to write a paragraph about what you think will happen with my detention experiment: “I think that the class will probably behave better with the detentions. It must be really…

Today was day one of the scientific method! I did this “experiment” I learned from another TFA teacher – you take beakers filled with various combinations of ginger ale and sprite, arrange them in a gradient from dark to light, and put some golden raisins in each one. Then you tell the kids that they…

After a relaxing weekend of lesson planning, making worksheets, calling parents, and photocopying, it was time to get up bright and early to start week two! Today went pretty well – my rambunctious class was a challenge as always, but I taught them in their homeroom today while their homeroom teacher sat at her desk…

Student: You’re a real scientist, right? Me: Yes, of course. Student: Does that mean you won the Nobel Prize? I love science question time! Another one asked me if I was a “rocker” in high school. It took me a minute to figure out that he was referring to my cartilage piercing. Aside from the…

I think Thursdays are going to be my hardest days – I have my difficult class for a double period directly after lunch, that’s almost two full hours of them after they’ve gotten all hopped up on sugar and worked up from running around at recess. The worst part today was that right in the…

For three out of four classes, today went a lot better than yesterday. I did a better job with the whole teacher voice thing, and also with giving the teacher look to students who were talking. The fourth class… they are definitely going to be my biggest challenge for the year. Today I brought in…

Today was my first day of teaching. Yesterday I was just a little bit freaked out that this event would somehow result in my death, so since I am still alive I guess I can’t complain. It definitely could have been worse, but it was still pretty rough. The first class I had went pretty…