- *The kids love to sweep and vacuum in class. They love to clean off the desks with 409. They beg to be allowed to wash my car. (I do not, in fact, let them. I'm sure that's a violation of many laws.) How much do you want to bet that doesn't happen at home?
- *For anyone who missed why it is 'light skinded' instead of 'light skinned' - the kids were reading aloud today and every single child said 'lookded' instead of 'looked.' We had to go through the word sound by sound to see that there is only one 'd' sound. That's just not how you say things here.
- *One of the kids came to me in tears today to tell that another kid was calling him a 'buck-toothed beaver.' I realize that that would be hurtful when you are 8 years old, but it was really really hard to not laugh at him, especially when he kept repeating 'buck-toothed beaver.'
- *Because of the No Child Left Behind law (don't believe it, we're leaving children behind left and right and I have a hard time talking calmly about it), our school was reconstituted and next year we're going into incubation to be a new small school. I could explain what those mean, but really, don't those words make you think of frozen orange juice and baby chickens? Who says schools are 'reconsituted' and 'incubated'? For that matter, who declares 'sanctions' against elementary schools? Your administration, that's who. I don't take credit for them. I've decided to be Mexican.
(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class....
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I don't think there's any trouble in taking the pictures, or showing them; I just don't know what the law is about posting them in a public space... isn't there anyone you can ask?
at first I thought they were saying I'm getting up there in my 20s. but then I got it - "up in my 8s" - and I liked it!