Donate Now I don’t really know what happened to the teachfor.us site for the past few days, but here’s the post I would have written on Tuesday if the site hadn’t been down: The kids were waaay too cracked out on Christmas to attempt learning, so instead we watched the first episodes of The Future…

Donate Now I graded the unit four tests this weekend, with a little help from an expert grader, and I am so happy! The average for the unit three test was a 58% and I was crushed, but for this unit it was a 75%! That is a huge improvement! TFA has you break each…

I didn’t fully anticipate that because all my “good” kids earn science points at the same rate, they would all reach the amount required for a fast food meal with me at the same time. I have taken four groups of kids to Burger King this week and two to McDonald’s, and I’m starting to…

Most of the kids seemed to get into playing review jeopardy in preparation for tomorrow’s unit test, but that didn’t prevent fights from breaking out in two of my classes. Also, today’s after school McDonald’s trip was kind of soured by a group of “cool” kids showing up at the same time as me and…

In the middle of class today, a kid suddenly began to loudly sing “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down…” I asked him to please not Rick roll my lesson, and the kids exploded. They simply could not believe that me, their teacher, had heard of the internet. It’s funny, but I…

Nothing out of the ordinary today, just the usual screaming, shouting, and shoving with small spurts of learning thrown in. The two saving graces of the day were: Burger King with three very sweet girls, who filled me in on all the hilarious seventh grade gossip (guess who has a crush on a sixth grader???)…

Today our science consultant, Mr. K, came in to give the kids a practice ILSE (Intermediate-Level Science Examination, the hands-on science test they have to take at the end of eighth grade). I was in a bad mood because I still feel kind of achy and tired, and the kids were being very argumentative and…

Back to school today, but still feeling under the weather and sadly without Ms. L – she caught whatever I had (have?), as did seemingly half the teachers at the school. There were so few eighth grade teachers in attendance today they had to split one of the eighth grade classes up amongst the others,…

Due to a combination of still feeling under the weather from Tuesday’s midday stomach surprise and being absolutely unable to face my bad class for the Two Hour Double Period From Hell, I did not go to school today. Instead, I slept in until 8, made all my lesson plans for now until break, and…

Awhile ago I wrote about Yenesey, whose classroom rampage was temporarily slowed by my communication with her basketball coach. Since then she’s been sort of on (when she moved to sit by herself so she could do all her work without getting distracted) and off (when she told Ms. L to “Shut the F*** up”…

I woke up feeling a little woozy today, but thought it was just a combination of sleep deprivation and the pit in my stomach I get whenever I think about going to school. Unfortunately, about ten minutes before the end of fourth period, I had the sudden and intense realization that I was going to…

Today I tried to introduce the concept of waves to my students, and it did not go well. The idea that waves exist outside of the ocean, and that something abstract like sound travels as a wave, was just… disastrous. Tomorrow I’m doing the classic “wiggle a slinky around to learn about waves” lab, so…

Holiday fever is starting to set in. In just one day, I had: Kid A throws his binder in Kid B’s face. Kid B retaliates by throwing her binder in Kid A’s face. Kid A ducks, Kid B’s binder goes out the fourth story window. Kid C and Kid D are facing off in class…

My awesome stoplight timer took a rather spectacular fall from my cart today, and now it is flashing random colors and its LCD screen is showing bizarre dots and squiggles. I am sad. Fifteen days until break.

Despite the abysmal failure of unit 3, today we began our fourth unit of study: Properties of Light and Sound. Basically, they have the rest of the month to learn: There is such a thing as energy, and it comes in different forms (chemical, mechanical, etc…). Light is a wave. Sound is vibrations. We better…

Awhile ago I put in for a salary increase, since I graduated with two bachelor’s degrees and teachers get paid more based on their level of education. A mere three months later, and the paperwork has gone through! Now I am officially making half of what my computer science major friend makes working for a…