CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY!

A former student of mine, who is now 16, came to show me her early Christmas present from her father: A nice big tattoo... on her neck.  Nothing says "Please hire me!" like a big ugly neck tattoo!  Oh wait...

Smoking Skunks Get Smacked. And I Just Feel Bad.

Today, a half hour after we had already begun first period, one of my students walked into the classroom backwards and stated aloud, "I woked-ed up late." Now this particular student is not one to draw attention to himself, so I knew something was up right away based on his entrance.  As he made his way over to his seat, I was suddenly taken aback by the disgusting odor that hit me.  Now when the odor first permeated my nasal passage, my mind immediately went to a mental image of this student being attacked by a raging pack of rabid skunks on his way in to school this morning.  But I knew better than that, and I knew that this kid, who we will now call Skunk, had just gotten to school after smoking some skunk weed.  (I'll give you one guess as to why it's called "skunk".)  Almost immediately, the entire room was filled with this stench and the other students began yelling, "I'm gonna be sick!", "Can we open a window?!", "What the f*ck Skunk, you stink!"  It was when another teacher popped his head into the room and stated, "Just a heads up, your room reeks of weed," that I knew it was time to bring Skunk down to his administrator.  So I pulled him out into the hallway and just told him to follow me.  As we were walking, Skunk says to me, "Miss, where are we going?"  I replied with, "Skunk... where do you think we're going?"  That's when he dropped to his knees, put his hands up to his face as if he were praying and began sobbing, "NO MISS PLEASE! PLEASE! I'LL DO ANYTHING! THIS IS ONLY MY SECOND TIME SMOKING! I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN MISS PLEASE! MY MOTHER WILL KILL ME! LITERALLY! SHE WILL KILL ME! PLEASE!  I'LL DO ANYTHING!"

I felt awful.  I really do like this student and I hated to see him get in trouble, but I really didn't have a choice.  I explained the whole "mandated reporter" thing that goes along with being a teacher and that my job was on the line if I didn't bring him to his administrator, but he just continued to cry and beg me on his knees not to.  He was a mess.  I was a mess.

Once we got down to the administrator's office, he admitted that he still had some weed on him and he took it out. The school resource officer collected the "evidence", but didn't arrest him once Skunk gave up who his "dealer" was.  And it was none other than my golden child from 2 years ago... Sonic.  That totally bummed me out.

The whole situation really just bummed me out.  I felt awful getting this kid in as much trouble as I did, but he really didn't leave me with any other option.  Apparently once his mother got to school, she smacked him really hard across the face... twice... before an administrator had to step in.  I don't even want to imagine what will happen to him tonight when he's home.

I know that what I did today, had to be done.  I just feel awful having done so.

New Teacher Tip Of The Day:  Our job is not easy.

The 2nd Lockdown Of My Career...

Well today marks the second lockdown of my teaching career.  Here's what happened:

A boy called a girl fat.

The girl flipped out.

The girl attempted to punch a teacher.

The girl successfully punched an administrator.

The girl then tried to throw herself out of the second story window.

The girl was then restrained by 5 very large security guards.

The girl then puked all over every single one of the security guards.

Just another day in the life of a high school special education teacher...

Special Ed. Sympathy Cards...

On Thanksgiving Day, the sister of the tutor that I work with passed away after a very long battle with cancer.  So today, during my resource period, I had my students create sympathy cards for her for when she returns to work.

One of my students with autism wrote: "If your sister ate more vegetables, she wouldn't have gotten cancer."

My other student with autism drew a huge picture of a tombstone with "RIP" on the front of the card and on the inside wrote, "Please pray to your sister and tell her I said hi."

Needless to say, I won't be giving all of the cards to her right away...  

Haven't updated in a week because we haven't had school in a week.  Mother Nature decided to rear her hideous head and gave us a snow storm... in October.  And, because all of the leaves were still on all of the trees, all of the branches snapped off of those trees and took down all of the power lines. Which in turn means (you guessed it!) no heat and no electricity for the week either.  It's been awful.  They (being the incompetent electrical company for the state) ended up restoring power to the high school I teach at and the town was able to make it into a shelter.  So yes, this happened, and yes, that is my desk and my stuff:

Now that's what I call... dedication.

Ratatouille...

Today in my social studies class, we were talking about laws.  At one point laws about food came up and then sanitation.  Then the kids began talking about how disgusting our school is because we have mice.  (Yes, every once in a while, one of those little critters will scurry across a classroom.)  At that point, Gamer (my student with autism and tourettes) raised his hand and exclaimed, "Say... if I had a restaurant and there was a mouse inside of it... I would hire him!  I hear they cook great meals!"  It was hilarious.  Happy Friday!

Learning Styles

So today, as I had already stated it would be, was super busy; but also super successful (in my opinion... and quite frankly, that's all that really matters to me).  My meetings in the morning went as smoothly as they could and then, before I knew it, it was time for my first formal observation of the year, which I had been panicking about (as I always do).

The observation took place during my resource period with my entire group of hooligans.  My tutor, who is always with me during that period, was out this week due to a death in the family, so I was flying solo and I was stressing out.  But by the grace of God, the stars seemed to align for me: my biggest problem student, GrandLarceny, had been suspended, so he wasn't in class.  A female student who I really like, but who constantly questions everything that is asked of her was absent.  And then Shoelaces, who is the most disruptive student due to his unmedicated ADHD that I have ever come into contact with, requested to go to the Career Center for the period since he knew that I was going to be observed and claimed that he was, "just going to get [me] in trouble if [he] stayed in the room while that dude was here".  Needless to say, he didn't have to ask me twice.

So the lesson I did was all about the students discovering what type of learner they were (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) based on eye movement.  The students paired up and took turns asking each other questions.  The student asking the question, tracked the eye movement of the other student by checking off whether the student looked up (visual), to the side (auditory), or down (kinesthetic) when thinking about the answer to their question.  It went really well and the kids actually seemed to enjoy it; especially when I told them that I had done this activity in one of my college courses.  College?!  And they are doing this in the 9th grade?!  OMGAWD THEY ARE SO AWESOME AND MATURE!  Ha ha... right.

We then discussed what ways their different learning styles could be utilized in their classes and how they plan to use this information in the future.  I thought it went great.  Before I knew it, my administrator came over and told me he was leaving and that he'll have my report ready for me tomorrow to sign.  So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and really hoping that he writes me a positive (and literate) report this time.  Last year was rough.  Just click on "Formal Observation" in the labels below to read about my previous experience with this guy.

New Teacher Tip Of The Day: "The only sin is if you hear a good idea and don't steal it."  I've made it easy for you to steal this one: