A Puzzlement

I'm baffled. I gave my class a lab to do, and they did it. Almost all of them. And they were great. This was my eighth graders, a class I've had a lot of trouble with. A couple of strong personalities were absent today, but that's no excuse for such good behavior. I had them for a double period, which is usually a huge challenge for me. Today it worked. I spent the first period doing a review game with them, and it was a new game I was trying, but it worked. The second period, they did a lab! I gave each group a Matchbox car, ruler, and stopwatch, and I asked them to make a racetrack out of textbooks and calculate distance, time, and speed. And they did it! I turned my back for one second and they were all doing it! Well, mostly. One or two kids were not entirely helpful, but every single student contributed somewhat. Some usual characters were really into it, creating elaborate textbook ramps and then cleaning them up afterwards. It was great.

My homeroom class was actually good. I had to call several of their parents tonight after getting a list of misbehaving kids from the sub, but they were working hard today. I had them drawing pictures of plant and animal cell organelles from a textbook, adding in their own creativity. They enjoyed drawing. I should use their creativity more.

My later, difficult class was not so difficult. I did the review game with them, and although I didn't have 100% compliance, I taught a bunch of kids some stuff. Hopefully, it'll show on the exam tomorrow.

Lunch duty was another story, but let's not go there.

After school, our usual faculty meeting was an independent work session, so I decided to take the cornbread I had made for the meeting and walk around to classrooms, sharing it with teachers. I got to thank them all in person for being so helpful.

Another thing I got done this afternoon: I met with the principal, and the Wilbur Cross School Science Fair will be on Thursday, January 19! And I'm getting extra paper to make the packets! I'm definitely anxious, but now I know what my demon looks like.

I had a great TFA learning moment yesterday. TFA always emphasizes assuming that others have our best interests in mind, especially our colleagues, superiors, and students' parents. Yesterday, I received an email from the principal asking if I have been contacting students parents when necessary. My first response was frustration: what does she have against me? I'm doing my parent calls! I got all stressed out and everything. So, I wrote the nicest, most responsibly-worded email I could muster, about how I've been calling parents when I can and documenting it on an Excel file. I immediately got a response: Thanks for the update, let me know if I can do anything to help you enforce your classroom policies.

Oh. I guess she was being helpful, not accusing. I need to get over the whole teacher-hates-me view of the principal. She's a really great principal who could really use an assistant principal.

I spent the last two hours making parent phone calls. The substitute teacher yesterday left me a list of names, and I promised I'd call. I called 14 homes, spoke to someone about half the time, and left a few voicemails. Not bad for a day's work. I'm getting pretty good at it, too. Considering it was the thing I worried most about, it's not so bad. I can call someone to tell them that their child is lazy and disrespectful, but I do it in a way that makes them thank me for it. Maybe they just like talking about their kids, or maybe they just like me, but I've heard more nice things this afternoon than I do in a usual week.

And now, I'm going to drag my butt to the gym and then out for trivia. I've got a terrible sore throat and headache, but I THINK I feel better than I did the last couple of days, and that I'm getting better.