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2001-10-30 - 7:05 p.m. For those readers who were worried about my thinking the season premiere of the Gilmore Girls was sub-Boombastic, never fear: the last episode more than made up for it. I am back in full effect with Gilmore Girls love. My personal favorite part from the last episode was when Rory said that thing about Nick Cage overacting and then did the "BELLA BAMBINO TWO O CLOCK!" thing. That cracked me up because I was totally annoyed by that part of the preview as well. I felt at one with Rory at that point. By the way I have a student named Rory, but it's a boy. I like that name a lot, boy or girl. I am a little weirded out by Rory's obsession with Harvard. I did like the part where she was totally getting into a discussion with the rest of the class she was sitting in on. Believe it or not, I missed a lot of the Boston Public episode and all of Ally McBeal. I did get to see the part with the cut off arm and it freaked me out. I was also wondering if that was Michael Rappaport. I was not down with the whole comment he made where he said he sometimes fantasized about the nasty classmates as well. YUCK!!!!!!!!!! I am praying that the subject of masturbation never comes up in my classroom. Speaking of which, I had a great day after all of my trauma yesterday. We started The Canterbury Tales and the students actually are into it. I was sort of dreading it because I thought it would be hard for them to get into and I remembered it dragging last year. However, the fact that Chaucer was in The Knight's Tale (we all lovingly refer to him as "the naked guy"> made it sort of a hook for them. Also I worked in there that the story is often banned in schools or libraries and they asked why and I said, "That's what you'll find out!" This was after we read about the squire and discussed that he was a pretty boy and a player. They decided that the part where it said he loved so hotly that he barely got any sleep meant that he had great stamina. I said I was unsure but that he definitely was a lady's man. It was nice sitting around laughing with teenagers about the humor in "the first great English writer's" masterpiece. Sometimes stuff like that just goes right over their head and I feel a little weird pointing it out to them like, "YOU GUYS JUST MISSED THE DIRTIEST PART!" My student aide, who is on an IEP and usually silent in class, even contributed to the class discussion in the following class! He had been in the previous class so he heard us talking about how the squire was a pretty boy and all. When I asked about the personality a lot of them weren't getting it in this particular class. Finally my student aide said, "He's a lady's man!" First time I heard him answer a question in class and I've had him two years now. I reacted with excitement and said, "EXACTLY!!!" I then saw him whisper to his friend about the whole stamina thing. Heh heh. I gave seventh period my whole spiel today after giving them their seating chart. One kid got very upset with me and ended up being sent to the office by me and he was swearing and all of that. But the rest of them were silent. I told them they could work silently on their papers and told them the consequences. I have never seen them so quiet and a lot got stuff done. I explained that I didn't want to be a mean teacher but I would if I had to be and that I do like them all. I also explained that it was rude and disappointing and it should not happen again. So anyway, it was nice I only had to kick one out and the rest were sort of giggling over how mad he got. He got really mad and what I said to him did not help the matter. I just didn't let it bother me and I wrote on his referral that I think he needs to write me a plan of how he will be successful in my class. He said that he planned to drop my piece of crap class, so obviously he needs to figure out some way to get along with me. After he left I let the kids know that I am the only sophomore English teacher so they have no choice!!!! I then cackled evily. At another point I said that from now on if they won't let me get through instructions or are keeping others from learning we will just switch over to worksheets. They didn't look too excited by that. I also heard a number of them talk about how I called their parents. So I am hoping that this will help everything. I also made sure to acknowledge that many of them were not bad yesterday, and I appreciated those that weren't. The other good thing about this was they told the other sophomore classes that they got in trouble and got a seating chart so the other sophomores seemed to be better behaved as well. My special favorite kid even said goodbye to me specially again today and showed me that he got more done than usual in class. Oh, I got my new student (in that class). He is from Mexico and speaks no English. Apparently we have no ESL program and they want him to go to the other school but this school is his local school. The district refuses to give us money to help this kid out. HI, district, how many laws would you like to break? Anyway, he is in my class and anytime I am near a Spanish speaker all my four years of Spanish fly out of my head. I just showed him his seat and said hi and all of that. I checked with a couple of kids to see if they were Spanish speakers but no, they are not. No Spanish speakers to help the kid out in my class. I sent a desperate plea to the Spanish teacher to translate some stuff so I can give him a little bit better idea of what to expect in my class tomorrow. The poor kid probably got all the hostile vibes in that class between me and the other students even though he couldn't understand what we were discussing. Probably thinks I am a mean and awful person. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow I can say something in Spanish so he feels a little more comfortable. I'm off to watch Gilmore Girls! WOO HOO.
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