10,000

Detention started out a little rough, like it always does, and then cooled off pretty quickly, like it always does. Try herding 20 angry cats. You should check it out some time. Eventually, they all end up where they're supposed to go, but there's definitely some collateral damage. Many dollars were lost, and a few tears were shed.

Last night at Relay, we spent a lot of time talking about difficult conversations with students and their famillies. This is a PD I've had several times (including at last Thursday's staff meeting, in preparation for our conferences tomorrow), but I definitely learned one or two things. The most important thing was to steer each conversation towards mutual interest. That is the goal, because everyone is invested in mutual interest.

Today, I had a moment that was so perfectly aligned to last night's discussion, when I violently steered a conversation towards mutual interest. I was a little cranky today, and had just pulled a student out of line (maybe my first time yelling all year?). The conversation went something like this?

Teacher: WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAD TO TALK IN LINE.

Student: It wasn't me, it was another student.

Teacher: WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU TALK THROUGHOUT CLASS?

Student: I don't know.

Teacher: WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT?

Student: I don't know.

Teacher: YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED IF YOU KEEP TALKING THROUGH CLASS.

Student: ??

Teacher: DO YOU WANT TO SUCCEED?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: DO YOU WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: Where do you want to go to college?

Student: Uh, Kansas? Texas?

Teacher: To play football?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: To get into any of those programs, you need to do well in school. And to do that, you have to stop talking to your peers. Do you understand?

Student: Yes.

Mutual interest success!

Of course, today's exit ticket, I realized, was not aligned to anything. I did a slope reteach today, adressing positive and negative slope calculation. This year, the kids are MUCH stronger on slope, but only about 50/50 on calculating negative slope. So, we dove into calculating positive and negative slope today, and the exit tickets, that were supposed to assess their progress, asked them to calculate a simple positive slope. So I had to change it last minute. The results still look good, though. I can't wait to see the IA results next week, and send them to my old IL to show her how much I improved.

Friday night, I invited a couple of colleagues to my parent's house for Shabbat dinner. There was a lot of food, a lot of wine, and a lot of fun. On Saturday, I had Relay all day, which involved a lot of snacking, so my 5-miler afterwards was not fun. It still got done, though, which felt good. I'm up to about 13 miles per week, including 2 workouts (a tempo and a small set of intervals). Besides, my legs are feeling good. Except for the whole teaching part. Then my legs are still tired.

Sunday was kickball, and my team lost. It was all my fault. I was mistakenly called safe at 1st, as our tying run crossed the plate, and I was HONEST. I admitted that I got tagged for our 3rd out. This set us back 1 run and spoiled the momentum, so we finished the game a couple of innings later down by one.

I've got a nice fast and fun run with a colleague today. I can't wait - the weather is beautiful.

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