every beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Well, my first placement has drawn to a close...

Thursday afternoon I drove home qyietly in the rain, simply mulling over each of my students and imagining their lives going on after my part in their lives has ended.

I know it's something that, as a teacher, I need to get used to, but teaching isn't exactly a profession where you can just leave your work at the office.

All that said, I had a wonderful time at my first placement. I learned a lot and met a lot of great kids.


English 3, period 2


One of the favorites :)


English 2


English 3, period 7


Cooperating teacher & some of the guys


me & a student thugged out :)

I will miss all those crazy kids...

Tomorrow I start my second placement. Since it's a small, rural school, I will be teaching ALL the 11th grade students! I'm excited to meet some more students.

PS - Make sure you go back and click on all the pictures so you can see each of my charming kiddos!

all in a day's work...

Apparently a student stabbed another student outside the school this morning, around 7:15.
It's all the kids and teachers are talking about.
Talk about getting the day off to a good start...

Update:
The student who was stabbed is a girl from Mr's AP class, and the student who allegedly did the stabbing is a girl from one of my junior classes. The victim has already been released from the hospital & has "superficial wounds."

News articles:
WHAM 13 - East High Student Stabbed

Democrat & Chronicle - Girl cut today in alleged fight at East High

RNews - Girl Stabbed in Front of School

monday, monday. can't trust that day.

Seen & heard around the classroom...

Mr. was discussing Spring Break, and mentioned "Good Friday," and one of the students asked, "What's Good Friday?" Mr. proceeded to tell the class that Good Friday is the day when Christians believe Jesus was crucified. One female student piped up, "Oh - I thought Good Friday was a shopping day."

This morning as I had entered the school, I was walking down a relatively empty hallway, and my shoes were clicking noticeably (teacher shoes!). A middle-aged male teacher ahead of me turned around and commented, "I always know when a beautiful woman is coming because I can hear her shoes a mile away." ... How disappointed he must have been!

Rumor flying around the school is that we'll have a day off tomorrow because the temperature is supposed to be in the single-digits, with a wind chill of -20 to -30. Bring it on, Poseidon.

over 490 & through the alley - to granny's house they'll go

I started with the junior classes this past week. They've been going pretty well. The 2nd period class, though... it's like pulling teeth to get them to do work! It's a much bigger class as well, so I feel like I'm running a circus act sometimes, but somehow we managed to make it through the week without falling behind the other class!

My sophomore class has continued to go well. The kids were rather squirrelly on Friday, but I guess that's to be expected. We've been reading Raisin in the Sun, and they are really into it! On Wednesday I was going to have them stop reading about 10 minutes early so I could give them some extra essay suggestions (plus it was a good stopping point), and when I told them to stop, they collectively started saying, "No - let's keep going!" And let's be honest, if these kids tell me they want to keep reading?!?! We will keep reading!!

I am starting Catcher in the Rye with the juniors, and I found this great story online to use as an introduction. It's called "Catcher in the Oatmeal," and it's basically the story of Goldilocks & the Three Bears - except it's written in 1st-person from the perspective of Goldilocks, and it's written in Holden Caulfield's voice - hilarious! So I had the kids read that & then I had them re-write Little Red Riding Hood in a 1st-person narrative style & I let them choose what voice they wanted to adopt. A lot of them, not surprisingly, wrote about "Little Red IN the Hood..." which was quite funny. I had one student who wrote from the wolf's perspective:
"So I knocked on the door, and I was like, "Granny - it's me! I got 40s and blunts for you!"
Ah, making real-life applications.....

Overall, things are still continuing to go well & I'm still enjoying it!