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2001-09-05 - 6:36 p.m. The first real day of school was today. Yesterday was just freshmen and new students. Anyway, I finally decided to wear a pair of new conservative grey pants and a white button up shirt that was fitted at the waist. I felt professional yet attractive. White button up shirts are my favorite ever. Okay, what a random way to start out this entry... The day went well. There are only a few problems with things this year. Last year there was this big hoopla because there is a class that is like an honors thing for seniors. It has always been a two period class that counts as three credits. It takes the place of the normal classes which would be global studies, government and English. The guy that teaches it is very traditional, conservative (I think he actually even votes repuplican--very rare for a teacher, at least in Oregon), and lecture based. Anyway, he loves this class to death. Last year the district started freaking out over how it is three credits for only two class periods. My principal's solution to this (while at the same time adding advanced classes at all levels) was to add on advanced senior English. That meant that they would be taking his two period class and my one period class (as the only senior English teacher I would be teaching it) to get the Honors Diploma. The problem? My principal is somewhat a person who avoids confrontation and decided rather than talking to the other teacher, he would just put it that way on the forecasting schedule. He told me about it. Anyway, the other teacher was freaking out when he found out, especially since it was only through kids running to him and asking why they now had to take two classes instead of one like it had always been. So I felt super guilty because I knew about it and hadn't said anything(but I figured the principal would tell him). In any case, this guy has been fighting with the district to let him have it back the way it was. All summer long I have been thinking I am going to be teaching this advanced class. I have been very excited thinking of ways to teach it. Yesterday (first day of school)the principal comes up to me. "Well, you lost the advanced comm. class." Because the district decided finally they would do it the old way. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! Luckily I am a lazy ass who didn't plan anything all summer so I haven't lost too much. But I was looking forward to this and I love the kids that I lost to him because of it. Well, this means for now I have a free sixth period except for one kid who was taking it without taking the other classes. I think tomorrow she will be coming to my other period. The thing is, though, that I have huge numbers in my other two senior classes. 39 and 43 to be exact. It is out of control. I am hoping I can just have three regular senior classes so that I can split those ones out among three classes instead of two. The other option was to try to get an advanced English class without the other classes, but only six or seven kids expressed interest in that. The third option is the worst option--to take the freshmen advanced class. The idea of teaching freshmen isn't a complete turn-off because they are cute and little like middle schoolers. However, they are also a handful and without ANY planning time I would have to learn a whole new curriculum. I already knew the senior stuff so the advanced wasn't such a stretch. The freshmen numbers are really high, which is why one of the other teachers was hoping that I could take advanced so he could even out his freshmen classes. Of course I want to be the one who benefits from my poor luck. Hopefully I get to. But back to the first day! I had a pretty great day other than that the senior classes are so huge. The sophomores seem nice enough although I don't know how I will learn all their names. Last year I had all the names down by the end of the first four days. I don't know if I can pull that off again. They weren't even that outraged by my seating chart. I explained it was so I could learn the names (though with the seniors it was more than that--I did my best to separate ones that would get rowdy with each other). I was a little nervous during the first period, but after that I felt confident like an old pro. Things took less time than I remembered though, but luckily I didn't run out of things to do. I was hoping my novelty would have worn off by now (last year I was the most exciting thing in life for these kids because all the other teachers are so old) since there are two new young teachers. Apparently I am still exciting and fun though. One of the things we did was I gave them an index card for all of their pertinent information and they could tell me one thing and ask me one thing. The top two questions: "How old are you?" "How long have you been teaching?" One kid wrote that the ________(insert Indian Tribe name here)Boys (my crazy third period boys from last year) told him all about me. He then asked if I still think that ________(one of the kid's from last year)butt is as cute as Ken Griffey Jr. I am telling you, the third period boys from last year are such nightmares. It was 11 boys that had all been best friends since elementary. That was my entire class. You can imagine how hard it was to keep them on track sometimes (okay, all of the time). What ACTUALLY happened was this: I have a poster of Ken Griffey Jr. on my wall. When I was in high school I had a huge crush on Ken Griffey Jr. The poster was a gift from Justin. It sort of was a motivational type poster so I put it in my classroom. One day one of the boys asked me about if I liked Ken Griffey Jr. I explained that I thought Ken Griffey Jr. was cute and that was why Justin bought me the poster. The boy noted that Ken Griffey Jr. had a big butt. I said something about that not necessarily being a bad thing (how did we get into this conversation?!?!) Somehow the boys started yelling that _____ in the class had a big butt as well. Later that evening I went to their baseball game and I heard them all yelling about how I came to check out ____'s big butt. So all the elements are there, except that it was not ME but THEM who started the whole big butt like Ken Griffey Jr. thing. I hope the _____ Boys didn't tell this kid anything else made up. That is out of control insanity. I did also see some of my former seniors from last year. Two came by yesterday and one today. All of my kids I already had seemed very excited to see me and talk to me so that felt good. It's hard to form an impression of the kids on the first day because you are so stressed out about getting all the housekeeping stuff taken care of and kids are in and out asking for things non stop. Hopefully tomorrow I can get a better impression. I think for the most part they are all sweethearts. I was worried yesterday about this one kid who is new. He came over from the other high school and he very much gave the impression of not wanting to be there or talk to me or whatever. A lot of kids are like that at first, you smile at them and are friendly and they are really short in their answers and won't smile back. Anyway, today he actually smiled when he came in and told me he got kicked out of the other school for too many absences. Hopefully he will be okay. I already had to tell him to watch his language about three times. I have a reputation of being a soft hearted sweet teacher and I am hoping that I can replace that image with a new and tough image. Whenever I tell kids I'm going to be mean this year they laugh and say I could never be mean. We'll see. It's hard because they KNOW I love them even when I'm mad. I don't mind being nice but I do want to make sure I'm challenging them and that they aren't going to the bathroom every five seconds. (New mean rule--you must have your planner to leave my room so you better have it!) I hope I don't have to write any referrals this week. Usually the first few weeks you write a lot. More later.
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