Donate Now The big excitement for today was that our school got back our math test results, and 80% of our kids got 3′s and 4′s! (The test is out of 4, for you non-NYC-teachers). That is amazingly awesome, so much so that the mayor apparently decided to visit. He picked one school from each…

Donate Now Well, technically, go-to-the-allergist-and-figure-out-why-my-body-is-violently-rejecting-spring day. It’s amazing how many things are open during the day that I don’t usually get to go to because of work: the post office, the bank, the library, the pharmacy… I think this was the most productive day of my life. I would be such a competent adult if…

Remember when I was all excited about learning how to access the school’s scantron machine? My students took their Unit 7 Exam last week, on scantrons, only for me to find out that the lady who operates the machine is out of the building indefinitely. So today I had to recruit students to sit with…

We took a field trip to the bowling alley today – not exactly educational, but it was an incentive thing: a lot of kids have been skipping now that all the standardized tests are over, so in order to be allowed on the trip you could only have one unexcused absence over the past few…

I’ve been meaning to write about Reuben for awhile now – he’s the only kid whose real name I have to use. He is in second grade, and approached me reverentially on the playground at dismissal one day. Reuben: Excuse me, is your name Ms. Rubin? Me: Yes. Reuben: My first name is Reuben!! Ever…

Apparently I jinxed myself yesterday when I said I would be sad at the end of the year, because today my kids were back to their off-the-wall spring insanity. The highlight/lowlight of the day was when Tareque excused himself from class and spent the rest of the period doing drive-by paper-ballings of the room –…

Tomorrow is our Unit 7 Test, and so today we played Unit 7 Review Jeopardy. We have done this the day before every single test all year, but for some reason today the kids got so into it, they were the best behaved I’ve seen them since it started to get distractingly beautiful outside. One…

Nigel has the most intense ADHD I have ever encountered in my life, and at the beginning of the year he used to annoy the pants off me with his constant running around and talking. But we have figured out better ways for him to manage his energy, and now I realize that he is…

I just got back from turning in my final portfolio for my Lehman College grad class, which means I am officially done with Lehman for this semester! Too bad their summer semester starts in like a week… Today I heard Jorge, who had been a really problematic student early on but after much positive attention…

For a long time now I’ve been dreaming of bringing a small group of awesome kids to MIT, to show them what is possible if they work hard enough in school. And now it’s going to happen! I got administrative approval to take a group on a Saturday, and my AP was even excited enough…

I had another awesome two-period day today, as my classes that I usually have for doubles were out of the building on a field trip to a high school. I spent the extra six periods grading, finishing my bulletin board, and – most importantly of all – enlisting kids to clean the desks in our…

Between today and tomorrow, the seventh grade is going on a field trip to a specialized high school in Manhattan. Two classes went today, the other two are going tomorrow, and this is totally awesome for me because I only have to teach two periods each day! So today was a mostly relaxing day of…

I finally figured out that my allergies aren’t randomly an order of magnitude worse this year than ever before – I’m just sick. The final two clues were those awesome fever-induced achy joints, and one of my kids greeting me this morning with “I noticed something, Ms. Rubin! You’re nose is getting redder every day!”…

I remember being in elementary and middle school and coming home hysterical about I thought were world-ending social crises. I also remember my mom telling me that it actually wasn’t a big deal, that I should ignore people who were jerks and be happy with myself and my friends – and me thinking that she…

Today it was Three Musketeers bars, since we’re such a good team. Seriously, someone in my administration has an unhealthy obsession with candy puns. Or a Costco membership. Remember the uber-flamboyant Devon? Given his proclivities, his social circle consists entirely of this clique of catty girls. Or rather, it conisted of them – there was…

Today started at as every day this week has started – with a candy appreciation pun! My administration apparently takes expressing teacher appreciation in the form of candy very seriously. Today it was smarties, for how we all (theoretically) make our students feel. But after that, today was basically the inverse of yesterday. Yesterday all…

Continuing with the theme of expressing appreciation in the form of candy-based puns, today we all had Starbursts in our boxes to thank us for “making your students feel like stars.” There was also a complimentary teacher appreciation luncheon, which I forgot about until after I had already eaten the lunch I packed. I had…

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day! The administration put a fun-size Mounds bar in each teacher’s mailbox to thank us for the “mounds” of work we do, which I appreciated on an abstract level of punnery since I hate coconut. I don’t think any of the kids actually knew what day it was, although one student…

Remember the “King of Table 6″? I looked over at him today and had to do a quadruple-take before I figured out what was going on. My initial impression was that he had bushy tufts of hair coming out of his ears, and upon closer inspection it turned out that I was basically right –…

The social studies teacher organized a field trip to Philadelphia for today, and I ended up staying behind with the twenty-ish kids who didn’t go. It was a pretty relaxed day, which ended with us watching Madagascar 2 on the SMARTboard and eating popcorn. Whenever we watch a movie in class, I sit at the…