Unlike the rest of the world, I'm not in love with '80s music. Sure, there are certain songs I like. I love Michael Jackson and Prince, but overall I'm not as impressed as everyone else is. However, I have an eighties weakness: Hall and Oates. How is is possible that they have so many good songs? It's just ridiculous.
Speaking of good songs, here are a few you should go download: "Crown of Love" by Arcade Fire (seriously, one of my favorite songs lately), "I'm Here" by Climber (they're a Portland band, I think), "Tymps" by Fiona Apple, "Fade Together" by Franz Ferdinand, "Won't Back Down" by Mat Kearney, and "Table for One" by Liz Phair.
My friend Ava told me about how Franz Ferdinand just grows on you, and she is so right.
So while my personal life has been going really well, school has still been really tough. I talked to one of the seventh grade teachers at a meeting and she said things were so bad with this group last year that she dreaded coming to school. I am lucky to say that so far I am not in that boat, but it is TOUGH. I am used to having one "bad" class, or maybe two. I have basically all bad classes. I'm used to having one or two squirrely, nutty, crazy kids per class. This year I have about five in each class. There are tons of good kids but I have never seen such a lack of positive leadership. The good kids don't speak up or step up much. I'm used to kids shushing each other when I'm talking, or acting appalled when someone does something bad. It doesn't happen much this year. We have this stupid policy that we made up that if one kid gets caught with gum then everyone loses break. Well, they lose break EVERY SINGLE DAY. The kid who loses break has to go and tell every teacher/class that they were caught chewing gum and lost break for everyone. And it doesn't deter them! Can you imagine being in middle school and having to do that? I would have died. Even though I was a great student, I would have refused and suffered the consequences rather than humiliate myself. Instead, they don't care, and the others don't apply enough peer pressure on them to make any difference. There have been kids who have been caught more than once and lost break for everyone more than once, and they still don't care. Some of the kids in one of my classes were talking about it and how stupid they think the rule is, and asked me what would happen if they all chewed gum on the same day. As a form of protest. Would they all get in trouble? What would happen? I wouldn't say I encouraged them, but I said it was an interesting idea. I'm all about the non-violent protest. It is a stupid rule, it's not working, and I am sick of not having a break! But I don't think that this crew is organized enough to get it together on this one. When we do have break, though, they are so out of control that I am thankful that we don't have it very often. Ugh. On the plus side, though, our new late work policy is working out really well for me. All of the teachers have agreed not to accept late work (we have given them five coupons for emergencies). This has kept me on my toes with grading much more so that I can make sure I know if someone is not doing well. I talk to the kids about their grades once a week (which takes time, but it is worth it) and I see right away if someone is missing something, and I check in with them about why they don't have it. If at all possible, I make them do it then and there. I have more A's and fewer F's than I have ever had. I am so pleased with myself and them. Last year we had sweethearts but the grades were pretty bad. This year we have terrors but the grades are pretty good. I guess you can't have everything.
I do think that some of the key players on our team are self-eliminating. That sounds horrible, but the kids that don't want to/can't handle it are basically causing so many problems that they are going to either be suspended/eventually expelled or they are going to be alternatively placed. I like a lot of those kids a lot, but it's not fair to them or the other kids for some of them to be here. When you are so disruptive that you are being sent out of class multiple times a day there is a big problem. And we have many kids like that.
Needless to say, I'm more than a little nervous about my upcoming evaluation. Luckily, I will be watched by the same administrator who was impressed by both observations last year, so hopefully he will take anything that happens with a grain of salt.
Chad stayed up all day on Wednesday so that he would be able to sleep when he spent the night with me on Wednesday (usually he isn't tired when I am tired and need to go to bed since he works nights). Well, the plan backfired a little bit. We went to bed around 11 on Wednesday and both got up when I had to go to work. I went to his house on Thursday and he was so tired that he fell asleep at 8:30. I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep but I fell asleep then, too. Then tonight he came over before work and he was still tired, so we took an hour and a half nap. Then after he left, I went back to sleep until he called me from work. So basically his trying to be more on my schedule resulted in us sleeping non-stop. I love sleeping with him, but we didn't have a chance to hang out awake that much. :) I thought it was a sweet gesture, though. Oh, I also finally made a successful dinner for him. I made rice and red curry, and I didn't make it too hot this time! He had seconds, so I know he wasn't lying about it being good. Yay.
Okay, I better get going. My mom is coming down tomorrow. I'm happy to see her.
