Donate Now Today was picture day, and just like last year I spent a hellacious forty-five minutes in an auditorium full of picture-frenzied seventh graders wishing I had something to gouge my ear drums out with. Two students (including the Sidewinder) couldn’t even be photographed, because they refused to take off their hats. And now…

Donate Now In celebration of Thanksgiving eve, I gave my kids a quasi-break and showed them The Future Is Wild movie that was such a hit last year. As expected, they loved it; also as expected, they could not restrain themselves from screaming out “That looks like [name of classmate]!” every time a new animal…

He really does, because they are so enraptured by his antics that they don’t even think of doing any of the crazy stuff they try during regular lessons, and since I have them take notes on him they actually learn quite a lot (I’ve had it happen more than once that a kid will surprise…

Today was a bit frenzied because it was the first day of our SQR (school quality review). All these fancy high up DOE people come in to observe classrooms, interview kids, and generally send everyone into a panic. I got observed last year and it was pretty nerve-wracking, thankfully this year they’re observing Ms. L…

First and foremost, the notorious Caesar has officially moved to Brooklyn and been removed from our school’s register! Apparently he actually was living in Brooklyn with his mother for awhile, but commuting to our school (and only showing up half of the time). His family finally switched his enrollment to a closer school, so I…

A week ago today, the lovely Ms. L got a rather nasty email from a student: lol Ms. L you are an ugly teacher you are a fukin bitch The email came from the account of Abdul, a student who never so much as sets a toe out of line, so we doubted it was…

I have a handful of students who fervently believe that the world is going to end in 2012, and over half of all my students are at least somewhat nervous about the possibility. I had several students who asked me about the world ending last year, based on vague urban legends they had heard about…

The second day of PTC is in the afternoon, so it’s only a half-day of school for the kids. I guess half-days are better than regular days in that the kids are only there for three and a half hours, but its pretty exhausting (and basically pointless) to hurtle through the schedule in double time…

Today was the first day of parent teacher conferences, which was nice because it was an excuse to not have to go to grad school. I’m kind of exhausted from smiling and shaking hands with thirty families, though, so this will be short. The happy highlight was telling one mom that I had “nothing but…

I intercepted an awesome note today, it was a paper that had made it almost all the way around the room and each kid had written their AIM on it. I really, really wish it would not be unethical for me to post those AIMs on here, because I cannot even come close to imitating…

I guess my kids enjoyed the day off yesterday as much as I did, because today they were in that rare calm/happy mood that makes it possible to actually teach them without having to constantly stop for behavior issues. As a result, we got to have the kind of relaxed, friendly interactions that I like…

I apologize for the lack of post yesterday, the teachfor.us site seemed to be down. The most memorable event from the day was in first grade, when one kid told another kid to hurry up with something. The second kid’s eyes welled up with tears, and he choked out, “you hurt my feelings.” The first…

My administration was gracious enough to let me go to a Professional Development at the North Star Academy charter school today, which despite requiring me to get up ridiculously early and get to Newark, NJ by 6:45 am was very fun. This is the same charter school whose open house made me cry last year…

I got into the elevator this morning with a kid who looked to be in about third or fourth grade. As soon as the doors closed, he heaved a dramatic sigh, leaned his head against the wall, and said “I hate Mondays.” I thought about it for a second, then decided to inform him that…

I gave the unit two test today, and asked for volunteers to stay after and help me grade. I was a little disappointed that the two kids who volunteered were ones I consider annoying – not terrible like the Sidewinder, just always talking, chewing gum, and other low-level nuisances. But I ended up having a…

Today was the first PD day of the year, meaning teachers had to come to school but not students – it’s sort of like half a holiday. I was really excited because the school paid big bucks for some outside people to come in and host a PD on classroom management, which is definitely the…

Sometimes it blows my mind how little common sense my students have – I don’t mean in terms of their behavior (although that can be mindblowing at times), I mean simply in terms of how they interpret the world around them. Case in point: at the end of each day, students put their chairs up…