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2002-09-03 - 10:19 p.m. I should be in bed, but I just wanted to write about my first day back. Yesterday was spent at school for seven hours doing lesson plans for the week. I'm not sure what took me so long, but I am pretty much ready. It's sad to mention that this is really only two days worth of lessons as tomorrow is just a sort of housekeeping day. Unlike some people, I am not giving a homework assignment on the first day of school, either. :) I don't have the guts, but don't worry--I'm giving one on the second day. I met the freshmen today. I only had one class, plus a few new sophomores to meet. All of the sophomores from last year that I saw seemed very sweet and excited to see me. They were kids who were helping the freshmen get oriented today, so of course they are the nicer kids anyway. I also saw a few graduated seniors (what are they doing back so soon!) and they gave me hugs. Oh, they were doing these icebreaker activities in my room, and there was this one little freshman boy who was refusing to participate because he felt the whole thing was stupid. Another angry young man. Well, I hoped and I prayed that I wouldn't get him in my class, and that my colleague (let's call him Mr. Frenchie) would get him instead. After all, he has three classes of freshmen, and I have only one. Well, lo and behold, angry young man is in my class. :) At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker in all of my subsequent entries from here on out--this is a CHALLENGE and I can DEAL WITH IT! :) Let's hope that angry young man just doesn't like icebreaker activities, and loves English and teachers named Ms. Boombastic. So then I got a nice compliment from this woman who is sort of co-head of special services (for kids on IEPs). She came into my room and said that the special ed assistants were about to have a meeting on who would be in what class. Assistants basically take notes, help all the kids stay on task, etc. They usually are in classes with a high number of kids who are on IEPs. Well, she wanted to let me know that they weren't assigning me one right now, but if I needed one in a particular class to let her know. She said that three or four of the special ed assistants said that they thought I would be fine without an assistant because, "Ms. Boombastic has such excellent classroom management skills," and, "Ms. Boombastic is so good at motivating kids and keeping them on task," and, "Ms. Boombastic is so good with the lower kids." WHAT?!?!?! Whose classroom were they in?!?! I was totally shocked by these compliments, but it still felt good. Now I feel like I have some sort of reputation to live up to, though, so I hope I can do it. I really was honestly surprised. Because I know I'm the bomb, and you know I'm the bomb, but I didn't know anyone else thought so. ;) I also never thought I would hear the day that someone would call my classroom management skills excellent. Some days I just pray no one walks in the door at that exact moment. I really don't like the first few weeks of school because I feel nervous talking to a group of kids that I don't know. I know I will get to know them soon enough, but it is still sort of weird having all these unfamiliar faces staring at me. I read in the NEA paper that someone said the first six weeks are the hardest because you haven't fallen in love with them yet, and I think that's true. I do fall in love with them quicker than that, but the general idea--they aren't "my kids" yet. I'm also feeling rather insecure in my lessons. I've kind of forgotten how to plan lessons and all my creative juices are not flowing yet. Hopefully I'll get better. There are so many things that I want to improve upon this year... American Idol. I refused to vote tonight because I think Kelly deserves to win, but I felt disloyal not voting for Justin. I think Kelly will win. I thought that Justin sang badly on the first song, but I liked the two other songs by him. Kelly I felt the same way. I don't know that I like the songs, but you know I'm buying the first single because I am corny like that. I didn't think that Will Young guy was very good or very cute. I did like it that he told Simon that he was not average. I have no idea what they plan to do for two hours tomorrow, but I'm guessing maybe they will bring all ten back or something. It better be good. And that's all I have to say about that.
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