Donate Now The third quarter ends a week from tomorrow, and a lot more students than usual are failing/perilously close to failing. This is due to a combination of the marking period being much shorter than the previous two, and me being much stricter about not accepting work that is late and/or obviously half-assed. Anyway,…

Donate Now I’m on my school’s Technology Committee, and at our meeting to today we had a sales rep from Tequipment (the SMARTboard people) come and show us all the sweet stuff we could get for the school with our technology budget next year. Highlights included: Personal remotes for each student, which they use to…

I decided to combine my love for crossword puzzles with my desire for a low-stress Friday after being sick, and the result was surprisingly successful. After I announced that the first table to solve the puzzle in each class got extra credit points, a lot of my students really got into trying to finish it,…

I don’t feel good I’m only posting so I won’t get a bunch of emails asking if I finally got stabbed to death with a binder.

Sometimes this job makes me feel like I have bipolar disorder. At 2:45 I’m screaming at Chris and Christina to stop fighting in the hallway (cause: Chris calling Christina “vomit;” highlight: Chris using the cast on his broken arm as a bludgeon), and at 3:15 I’m enjoying a calm afterschool snack at McDonald’s with Oryn…

I handed out progress reports today, since the grading period ends in two and a half weeks and an alarmingly high number of kids are failing. I hate doing progress reports, because even though every time I hand them out I introduce them with a whole “This is the grade you have earned, and crumpling…

We had another guest in our classroom today, and he gave a rather intense lesson about the evils of any food that is not organic, whole wheat, and raw. The elephant in the room was the fact that I take my kids to McDonald’s and Burger King as a reward, despite the fact that those…

Middle schoolers are pretty dumb. As soon as one of them does something, all of them are doing the same thing. Usually it’s something stupid, but relatively minor – for instance, since the first day of school there has been an never-ending series of memes that make their way across the seventh grade. Each word…

Since my school is K-8, we had a half day today for the elementary school parent-teacher conferences (middle schools and elementary schools have different, Dept.-of-Ed.-scheduled PTC days). The middle school teachers got the afternoon for professional development, so Ms. L and I had a glorious three hours to finish unpacking the LAST of the boxes…

Tareque, in the middle of a lesson about the relation between diet, diabetes, and obesity: “Miss, doesn’t knowing this take all the fun out of your life?” I’m sure he wouldn’t have asked if I had also taught them my “If-You-Don’t-Look-At-The-Nutrition-Information-It-Doesn’t-Count” diet philosophy. Alan, in the middle of a random human body lesson, “MISS! Are…

Betty is the only student that I have LOVED since Day One. Basically, Betty is me in middle school. She is pudgy, freckled, never quite wearing the “right” clothes, and always slightly disheveled – a classic nerd. She doesn’t have a ton of friends, but she loves science and me, and makes no secret of…

I thought I would profile Emily next, because she is Edward’s girlfriend. Unlike all the other dating couples in my school, who seem to pair off by randomly pulling names from a hat and never last more than a few weeks, Edward and Emily actually compliment each other’s personalities nicely and have been together as…

I got my hair cut over the February break, but today was the first day that I’ve worn it down (those of you who knew me while I was teaching at Institute know that my tendency to always wear a ponytail prompted one of my fourth grade boys to give me fashion advice). I was…

I just want to take this post to share my feelings for the nerdy love of my life: Bill Nye. I’ve only recently been able to control my classes enough to show them videos, and Bill Nye is a HIT. They all like to pretend like they’re too cool for his “mad corny” antics, but…

Yesterday’s part of the math test was multiple choice, so even though I was bubbling in all the wrong answers it wasn’t too painful to scribe it for that kid. But today’s part was free-response, so I had to do extended, completely-wrong math and write out elaborate explanations for how that particular answer had been…

Today was the first day of the high-stakes NY math test – it’s another “pass it or get held back a year” test. Like with the ELA test, I was happy because my regular Tuesday teaching schedule was cut from 5 to 3 periods. However, unlike with the ELA test, I didn’t get to relax…

I feel like the “can you believe they threw a binder out the window?!?!”” stories are getting a little old, so unless someone sets something on fire I thought it would be fun to profile some of my more interesting students for a few days. I’m starting with Edward, because if he is within a…

To make up for giving me two surprise double coverages last Friday, Fate replaced one of my periods with a “Town Hall Meeting” today. A Town Hall Meeting is when all the students and teachers for a grade get together to discuss something important, so that all the information is given in the same place…

Today was the first day of the students spending all day sitting in their homerooms while the teacher rotate. I have to say that my four months of cart teaching definitely made the transition easier for me, and overall the day went much smoother than I had anticipated. I thought the kids would go completely…

Maybe its because I’m in my fourth week of the Cold That Won’t Die, but I am losing my patience for my students’ behavior. I can’t believe that it is March and I am still having to call parents because their seventh grade children are not mature enough to refrain from hitting each other and…

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ms. L First, I want to say thank you to eight pound, six ounce Baby Jesus for the SNOW DAY yesterday. It was the best thing ever for my mental health to spend a day in my pajamas writing lesson plans, catching up on grad school,…

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY AT 6:00 AM http://schools.nyc.gov/default.htm “New York City public schools are closed today due to snow and wind conditions.” – For the first time in five years!