I left school today with the counting-down-the-days mindset. Four hours later, I had an "I love this job" moment. Here's the story.
Today was challenging. I learned a lot, but had a lot of difficulty. My homeroom class was really hard. I gave out locker assignments today, so much of the ENTIRE DAY was spent helping kids open their lockers. They were late to every class, as were the kids who got their locker assignments last week. From what I've heard, that is to be expected until about Christmas.
Later, when I saw my homeroom class, I gave them assigned seats. I put their folders at the right seats, and asked the students to sit there. Ha. I gave them a minute, and looked up to find them seated, with their folders, not in their assigned seats. I got angry. I made them stand up and resat them. The whole process took thirty minutes out of a 42 minute period. I swiftly went through the rules and consequences, and called it a day.
I learned today that each class has about fifteen minutes of quiet learning time before I need to plan other activities. And I used this fifteen minutes well for three of my classes. Three of my classes have appeared to learn observation and inference. They were engaged in a Powerpoint I found on the internet. It was a good one that had a lot of good examples to illustrate the concepts of observation (information taken with five senses) and inference (explanation of observation based on prior knowledge). I then gave them a quick demo of a lit candle covered with a beaker (poof!). Most of them understood that candles need oxygen, but it helped teach them the difference between and observation (candle goes out) and inference (the flame ran out of oxygen/air). The principal happened to visit during the engaging Powerpoint part. The kids were well-behaved and I was proud.
The homeroom class chaos happened after this, and then bus dismissal was rough as usual.
Also, it was rainy, which means no sunshine for the day. That always makes me sleepy and cranky.
After school, it got better quickly. I visited the local cheese shop. I made friends and bought 3 kinds of cheese and a baguette. I sat in traffic and munched on bread. I sat in traffic in the rain for a bit. I spent the time figuring out how I am going to call the parents of each of my 130 students to introduce myself in the next couple of weeks. My dad suggested that I call one today two tomorrow, and so on. It'll take three weeks, but it feels manageable.
I arrived home and collected packages for a dish rack and a helicopter. Yeah, a helicopter. I found an RC helicopter for sale on Amazon.com. It was a $130 helicopter being sold for about $20. And today it came in the mail.
I ate some cheese while the helicopter charged via USB. I then got to play with it. First of all, it is challenging to fly a helicopter, even a six-inch one. Also, it's good it is durable toy, because I think I hit every surface of my apartment in the process.
I just thought I'd mention that I bought the helicopter with the intention of sharing it with my class. It's a great demonstration of many physics principles. I BOUGHT IT FOR CLASS. No, really. I love this job.
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