The rest of the day didn't go quite as smoothly, but was still fun and pretty successful. I did have a great North Star moment, though, in the dismissal room: two kids were comparing quiz grades in my class. One had a 72 and one had an 85. The 72-girl said, "Damn, I gotta work harder."
This is a great place.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Honeymoon Over
Okay, it stopped being perfect yesterday. That said, it's still a whole lot better than last year.
Yesterday morning, there was a fifth grade field trip, so several teachers were out of the building, and I had to cover one typing class. Typing is challenging in general; it's a sort of filler class, and the students know that. It's an important skill, but is usually taught by another subject teacher as is something along the lines of "Log on to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" and stick to that for 50 minutes. I think it sounds like a blast, but the kids don't like it. It's always a struggle to keep them on task.
And yesterday, I taught a class in the morning, and then took that same class to typing. It was a two-hour fun fest. This is the class that is often the most challenging, but they were fine during science class. During typing, however, three students were talking, giggling, and off task the entire time. I took dollars off, but they didn't listen. I separated one girl from the group, but after she found someone else to talk to, I sent her to the dean's office. And here is where it gets extra interesting.
When I set girl #1 to the dean's office, girl #2 snarls under her breath, "Bitch". Of course, in my insecurity, I wasn't completely sure, so I waited until after class to take her to the dean. I was fuming at this point.
Unfortunately, I couldn't be 100% confident that she used profanity directed towards me, and explained that to the dean. She took two students out of class to ask what happened. One didn't hear anything, and the other swore that she said "Snitch". Yeah, okay. So she didn't get suspended, but the three students were pulled out of class for the day and forced to apologize for me. Next time, I need to be more confident in my accusations. The three kids are not new to the dean's office.
I'm a little concerned that this student now thinks that she can get away with this stuff. I was also incredibly guilty about sending students out of my classroom. I think I have this ridiculous guilt complex about sending kids out, after some events last year. I was assured, though, by everyone, including the dean, that sending out kids is okay. In fact, the dean likes it, because then she can keep track of which students are problematic. She told me that whenever I need a break from the Kids We Love Most, I am free to send them to her. Well, okay. Still not in Kansas anymore.
And then today, we started volcanoes. It's as easy as I thought. I say the word "volcano" and kids perk up. They did everything I asked them. They were perfect angels this morning. They've already learned about volcanoes (this section of the course is pretty consistent with the 5th grade curriculum), but that didn't slow their enthusiasm. Their hands were in the air the whole time, basically teaching the class for me. "What happens next?" "And after that?" The best part was at the end, I left a few minutes for questions because they had SO MANY. The first student asked a question--and hands shot up in the air. Thus began the first mostly-student run Q&A session in science class. It was super easy and super fun.
Silent excitement for volcanoes!
Yesterday morning, there was a fifth grade field trip, so several teachers were out of the building, and I had to cover one typing class. Typing is challenging in general; it's a sort of filler class, and the students know that. It's an important skill, but is usually taught by another subject teacher as is something along the lines of "Log on to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" and stick to that for 50 minutes. I think it sounds like a blast, but the kids don't like it. It's always a struggle to keep them on task.
And yesterday, I taught a class in the morning, and then took that same class to typing. It was a two-hour fun fest. This is the class that is often the most challenging, but they were fine during science class. During typing, however, three students were talking, giggling, and off task the entire time. I took dollars off, but they didn't listen. I separated one girl from the group, but after she found someone else to talk to, I sent her to the dean's office. And here is where it gets extra interesting.
When I set girl #1 to the dean's office, girl #2 snarls under her breath, "Bitch". Of course, in my insecurity, I wasn't completely sure, so I waited until after class to take her to the dean. I was fuming at this point.
Unfortunately, I couldn't be 100% confident that she used profanity directed towards me, and explained that to the dean. She took two students out of class to ask what happened. One didn't hear anything, and the other swore that she said "Snitch". Yeah, okay. So she didn't get suspended, but the three students were pulled out of class for the day and forced to apologize for me. Next time, I need to be more confident in my accusations. The three kids are not new to the dean's office.
I'm a little concerned that this student now thinks that she can get away with this stuff. I was also incredibly guilty about sending students out of my classroom. I think I have this ridiculous guilt complex about sending kids out, after some events last year. I was assured, though, by everyone, including the dean, that sending out kids is okay. In fact, the dean likes it, because then she can keep track of which students are problematic. She told me that whenever I need a break from the Kids We Love Most, I am free to send them to her. Well, okay. Still not in Kansas anymore.
And then today, we started volcanoes. It's as easy as I thought. I say the word "volcano" and kids perk up. They did everything I asked them. They were perfect angels this morning. They've already learned about volcanoes (this section of the course is pretty consistent with the 5th grade curriculum), but that didn't slow their enthusiasm. Their hands were in the air the whole time, basically teaching the class for me. "What happens next?" "And after that?" The best part was at the end, I left a few minutes for questions because they had SO MANY. The first student asked a question--and hands shot up in the air. Thus began the first mostly-student run Q&A session in science class. It was super easy and super fun.
Silent excitement for volcanoes!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Yom Kippur
Yesterday, I was worried I was coming down with a cold, so I skipped out on my workout and ate Mexican food instead. It happens.
Today is Yom Kippur, the annual Jews-don't-eat day. It's certainly tough fasting all day, but it's important to me, probably more so than any Jewish tradition. I started to appreciate it 5 years ago, when I was Africa. I was in the middle of nowhere, and feeling homesick. I fasted, and was as cranky and hungry as the rest of my family, at the exact same time, thousands of miles away. New Jersey isn't so far, but it still helped.
Fasting is much easier when I'm working all day; it feels like cheating. I guess I'm missing out on the repenting meditation of the holiday, but I had my moments. Every time I was hungry, or thirsty, I thought about how I am kind of clearing myself out of last year's junk (and last night's huevos rancheros). It's like spring cleaning. Everything I did wrong (I'm sure there was something) is forgotten, or forgiven, and now I can start the year fresh. It's like starting a new school year. If only Yom Kippur were a year earlier.
Besides, I got so much more work done today because I avoided the staff room and didn't need time for lunch (or snacks) (or other snacks). Unfortunately, today was the day my classroom-mate decided to treat his best few students to McDonald's. In fact, I am almost done with next week's lesson planning. (It does help that today's lesson had to be split in two, pushing everything back one day.)
To finish off the post for today, I share with you an email I sent to my IL, in response to her feedback from today's lesson.
Today is Yom Kippur, the annual Jews-don't-eat day. It's certainly tough fasting all day, but it's important to me, probably more so than any Jewish tradition. I started to appreciate it 5 years ago, when I was Africa. I was in the middle of nowhere, and feeling homesick. I fasted, and was as cranky and hungry as the rest of my family, at the exact same time, thousands of miles away. New Jersey isn't so far, but it still helped.
Fasting is much easier when I'm working all day; it feels like cheating. I guess I'm missing out on the repenting meditation of the holiday, but I had my moments. Every time I was hungry, or thirsty, I thought about how I am kind of clearing myself out of last year's junk (and last night's huevos rancheros). It's like spring cleaning. Everything I did wrong (I'm sure there was something) is forgotten, or forgiven, and now I can start the year fresh. It's like starting a new school year. If only Yom Kippur were a year earlier.
Besides, I got so much more work done today because I avoided the staff room and didn't need time for lunch (or snacks) (or other snacks). Unfortunately, today was the day my classroom-mate decided to treat his best few students to McDonald's. In fact, I am almost done with next week's lesson planning. (It does help that today's lesson had to be split in two, pushing everything back one day.)
To finish off the post for today, I share with you an email I sent to my IL, in response to her feedback from today's lesson.
Thank you for the feedback. It
was really helpful to have students explain how they calculated slope, so the
class could hear it a different way. In Salaam, almost all kids knew slope from
the start, so I had a student show how they did an ENTIRE problem, and the kids
corrected mistakes, and then discussed why it had to be a certain way. I’m
actually pretty confident in Salaam’s mastery of slope. This allowed me more time
in the class to review the definitions of underwater landforms more, which
helped the flow of the lesson when it came down to labeling the diagram. I also
limited the “pens down” time, which also helped the flow. Also, C was a
hand-raising rock star.
I am going to work on seating
charts: In Imani [first class - faith], I need to split up D/S and T/C. In Salaam [second class - peace],
I need to split up K/A and maybe D/K and
P/F. Ganas [third class - passion] has been rearranged recently, but I will keep an extra
eye out for chronic problems.
I have my list of students to
call sitting on my table—I keep forgetting! Priorities to remember tomorrow:
1-use checklist
2- ENERGY in the morning
3-Check off answers during IP (
did during Do Now in Salaam, really helped! It was easy to point out what they
need to look at again)
Thanks,
Robin
And the email response included exclamation points and excitement about seeing my class next time.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Night Off
Today started out with a bad case of the Mondays. I was moving slowly, and my kids were still having trouble with independent and dependent variables. After my first class, I rearranged my lesson to incorporate more review of variables. This led to some really good discussions, which felt really good. There was not a lot of teacher talking, but a lot of student voice. By the end, I had a much better idea of what I need to review before the interim assessment in 2 weeks.
I managed to, like only happens occasionally, get ahead on my to-do list. I even planned next Monday's lesson, which is...October! It is very soon no longer September.
On my way home, I paid a phone call to the replacement science teacher back in Bridgeport. She sounds nice. She sounds a lot like me. It's gonna be a bloodbath. I gave her as much advice as I could in 45 minutes, but then I had to go running before it got dark. I gave her some advice on how to deal with some of the students, and the principal. Mostly, that she should anticipate problems and seek out solutions on her own, because those that should help her may not.
I got a run in today, but was limited by daylight. I also felt some niggling in my knee and foot, so cut it short at 2 miles. It still felt good.
My boyfriend was out studying, so I had a relaxing evening alone. I didn't have to worry about cooking dinner or sitting at a table. Instead, there were fish sticks and miso soup on the couch, and some Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A good night off.
I managed to, like only happens occasionally, get ahead on my to-do list. I even planned next Monday's lesson, which is...October! It is very soon no longer September.
On my way home, I paid a phone call to the replacement science teacher back in Bridgeport. She sounds nice. She sounds a lot like me. It's gonna be a bloodbath. I gave her as much advice as I could in 45 minutes, but then I had to go running before it got dark. I gave her some advice on how to deal with some of the students, and the principal. Mostly, that she should anticipate problems and seek out solutions on her own, because those that should help her may not.
I got a run in today, but was limited by daylight. I also felt some niggling in my knee and foot, so cut it short at 2 miles. It still felt good.
My boyfriend was out studying, so I had a relaxing evening alone. I didn't have to worry about cooking dinner or sitting at a table. Instead, there were fish sticks and miso soup on the couch, and some Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A good night off.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Good Things
This week was a good week. Do I say that every week?
I'm trying to write more, I really am. I mean to, but it gets busy, and suddenly it's 9PM and I need to go to sleep. I did manage to get in a full workout twice during this work week, so next week I'll workout at least twice and blog at least three times. I need to prioritize blogging. I think it's harder to keep it up because I have less stuff to vent at the end of the day.
It was definitely stressful week, though.. I spent several hours this week on the phone with a lovely woman at the NJ Department of Education, and let me tell you, she really knew what she was doing. (That was sarcasm.) I spent a lot of time explaining to her that some colleges don't calculate GPAs, and other asinine conversations. It didn't help that in order to talk to her, I have to call up the DOE, traverse the automated menu, wait on hold for a customer service representative, and then have that representative send an email to my "Application Examiner" that I wish to speak to her. I then wait for a return phone call. It's really fun (also sarcasm) and it doesn't help that I occasionally have to put my phone down, like to teach.
Fortunately, my Director of Operations (a.k.a. Staples Liason, a.k.a. Fixes Photocopier, a.k.a. Is Generally Awesome) supported me the whole time, offering to answer the phone for me if I was teaching and guiding me through the whole process. It's still not solved, but I've reached a place where I've done what I can and can comfortably wait for bureaucratic processing.
The last two days' lessons have been on why the oceans are salty. Yesterday, the lesson was half a period of independently reading an article and taking notes, and the other half was answering questions in a classroom discussion format. And the kids were amazing. After 25 minutes of reading, they (almost) all knew exactly how the oceans became salty, and their discussions helped cement the concept for the other students. The kids are really supportive of each other and help peers work their way through difficult concepts, within a formal classroom discussion setting. It's beautiful.
Today, due to our half day for work time, we had a modified schedule. I taught my three classes consecutively in the morning, which involved a lot of preparation and a little anxiety. It turned out awesome. The lesson started with a demonstration, in which I had a flask full of water with red food coloring boiling on a hot plate. The kids correctly predicted that as the water boiled off, the remaining water would become a darker red, because the food coloring does not evaporate, so the concentration of food coloring increases. The color of the water really didn't change noticeably, but the kids were expecting it, so they saw it. Who says I can't use confirmation bias to my own advantage. So, other than teaching for 3 hours less 10 minutes with a slightly burnt thumb, from moving the hot plate without looking, the demonstration was perfect.
The rest of today's class was a short video on ocean water, which I stopped every minute or two so the students could answer and discuss a concept that was mentioned. It certainly wasn't the most exciting video, but the kids loved it. I even had to add in a moment for "silent excitement" (a way we allow our students to express excitement, a "spirit fingers" sort of thing) for the scientists using a salinometer to send salinity measurements via satellite right to the laboratory. (It was really cool.) It was a high school level video, and the kids were really thinking hard. I could see them thinking. And they came up with brilliant connections to every day life and last year's science class. I love them. These kids are amazing.
To top it off, my IL returned and observed a class. She gave zero real-time feedback and met with me afterwards to tell me that not only have I shown huge improvement and consistent ability to implement feedback, but that other colleagues have commented similarly.
I really love this job.
I'm trying to write more, I really am. I mean to, but it gets busy, and suddenly it's 9PM and I need to go to sleep. I did manage to get in a full workout twice during this work week, so next week I'll workout at least twice and blog at least three times. I need to prioritize blogging. I think it's harder to keep it up because I have less stuff to vent at the end of the day.
It was definitely stressful week, though.. I spent several hours this week on the phone with a lovely woman at the NJ Department of Education, and let me tell you, she really knew what she was doing. (That was sarcasm.) I spent a lot of time explaining to her that some colleges don't calculate GPAs, and other asinine conversations. It didn't help that in order to talk to her, I have to call up the DOE, traverse the automated menu, wait on hold for a customer service representative, and then have that representative send an email to my "Application Examiner" that I wish to speak to her. I then wait for a return phone call. It's really fun (also sarcasm) and it doesn't help that I occasionally have to put my phone down, like to teach.
Fortunately, my Director of Operations (a.k.a. Staples Liason, a.k.a. Fixes Photocopier, a.k.a. Is Generally Awesome) supported me the whole time, offering to answer the phone for me if I was teaching and guiding me through the whole process. It's still not solved, but I've reached a place where I've done what I can and can comfortably wait for bureaucratic processing.
The last two days' lessons have been on why the oceans are salty. Yesterday, the lesson was half a period of independently reading an article and taking notes, and the other half was answering questions in a classroom discussion format. And the kids were amazing. After 25 minutes of reading, they (almost) all knew exactly how the oceans became salty, and their discussions helped cement the concept for the other students. The kids are really supportive of each other and help peers work their way through difficult concepts, within a formal classroom discussion setting. It's beautiful.
Today, due to our half day for work time, we had a modified schedule. I taught my three classes consecutively in the morning, which involved a lot of preparation and a little anxiety. It turned out awesome. The lesson started with a demonstration, in which I had a flask full of water with red food coloring boiling on a hot plate. The kids correctly predicted that as the water boiled off, the remaining water would become a darker red, because the food coloring does not evaporate, so the concentration of food coloring increases. The color of the water really didn't change noticeably, but the kids were expecting it, so they saw it. Who says I can't use confirmation bias to my own advantage. So, other than teaching for 3 hours less 10 minutes with a slightly burnt thumb, from moving the hot plate without looking, the demonstration was perfect.
The rest of today's class was a short video on ocean water, which I stopped every minute or two so the students could answer and discuss a concept that was mentioned. It certainly wasn't the most exciting video, but the kids loved it. I even had to add in a moment for "silent excitement" (a way we allow our students to express excitement, a "spirit fingers" sort of thing) for the scientists using a salinometer to send salinity measurements via satellite right to the laboratory. (It was really cool.) It was a high school level video, and the kids were really thinking hard. I could see them thinking. And they came up with brilliant connections to every day life and last year's science class. I love them. These kids are amazing.
To top it off, my IL returned and observed a class. She gave zero real-time feedback and met with me afterwards to tell me that not only have I shown huge improvement and consistent ability to implement feedback, but that other colleagues have commented similarly.
I really love this job.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Rosh Hashanah
Great principal interaction #5: My IL is away for the week (covering for another principal on paternity leave), so I had my weekly planning meeting with the principal. I was able to convey my enthusiasm and my togetherness, and she had wonderful things to say. We shared enthusiasm over geology, and I think I showed her that I can keep up with my work even after leaving early yesterday for Rosh Hashanah. She suggested that I find more opportunities for my students to read science nonfiction. I love having students read, because it makes my job easier, and I love encouraging science literacy. I'll have to get on that. The meeting went well, and she observed my class immediately following.
I was nervous about the observation, but the class went pretty well. Of course, when she walks in the room, the kids are on their best behavior. I had feedback in my inbox by the time I sat down right after class. I was complimented on some great participation (many times, 100%!) and clear directions, but I need to improve my scanning. That is, when I tell the students to track the speaker, I have to make sure they are doing that. I have to NOT track the speaker. It's hard, because I want to listen carefully and respectfully to the student answering my question, but I need to be scanning for compliance. That'll be my next task.
Today I distributed progress reports to all my students, which consisted of a list of all grades so far for each student, signatures required. Surprisingly, I only received one concerned-parent phone call. It went well. I hate parent contacts, but I'm good at them, usually. This one was pretty easy. She was concerned that her student, who has an 80% average, had failed several exit tickets. I explained to her that exit tickets are only a small part of the quarter grade, and that she was showing an upward trend (her last three assignments were 80%, 100%, and 100%). And then the parent thank yous always makes it feel good.
I went home for Rosh Hashanah, and it was nice. There was a lot of food and I always love spending time with family and friends. I took a bunch of leftovers to school today, which helped me make even more friends.
Everything is still good. (Except for my NJ certification, that's kind of a frustrating jumble of phone calls and voicemail.) I'm so happy that I can work so hard on improvement every day, rather than worrying about damage control. I'm (mostly) keeping up with my planning and grading. My two goals for this week are to SCAN, not track the speaker, and to dig up more articles for the students to read.
I was nervous about the observation, but the class went pretty well. Of course, when she walks in the room, the kids are on their best behavior. I had feedback in my inbox by the time I sat down right after class. I was complimented on some great participation (many times, 100%!) and clear directions, but I need to improve my scanning. That is, when I tell the students to track the speaker, I have to make sure they are doing that. I have to NOT track the speaker. It's hard, because I want to listen carefully and respectfully to the student answering my question, but I need to be scanning for compliance. That'll be my next task.
Today I distributed progress reports to all my students, which consisted of a list of all grades so far for each student, signatures required. Surprisingly, I only received one concerned-parent phone call. It went well. I hate parent contacts, but I'm good at them, usually. This one was pretty easy. She was concerned that her student, who has an 80% average, had failed several exit tickets. I explained to her that exit tickets are only a small part of the quarter grade, and that she was showing an upward trend (her last three assignments were 80%, 100%, and 100%). And then the parent thank yous always makes it feel good.
I went home for Rosh Hashanah, and it was nice. There was a lot of food and I always love spending time with family and friends. I took a bunch of leftovers to school today, which helped me make even more friends.
Everything is still good. (Except for my NJ certification, that's kind of a frustrating jumble of phone calls and voicemail.) I'm so happy that I can work so hard on improvement every day, rather than worrying about damage control. I'm (mostly) keeping up with my planning and grading. My two goals for this week are to SCAN, not track the speaker, and to dig up more articles for the students to read.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Parents!
Today I ran 4 miles, bringing this week's total up to...4 miles. Felt good, though my legs were tired.I might do another 2 tomorrow, or I might attend a ballet class. One of those is easy/less fun and one of them will leave my calves and glutes screaming for days, but also leave me happy. I'll do better next week. This was a busy week, so I'll try to catch you up now.
Wednesday included my best and worst classes so far this year. The lesson was on calculating the slope of a line, which I didn't realize before is a very abstract concept, the kind that you either get or you don't. My first class in the morning was just getting it. It was a tough lesson, and I managed to really challenge the kids for a whole 55 minutes. The lesson was going well from the start, so I was really getting into it and the kids were getting into it and the whole thing snowballed into a whole high-on-teaching sort of deal. I ended up with a bunch of happy and engaged kids who really understood the material.
Unfortunately, what I didn't consider at the time was that the morning class tends to perform a little bit better than the other classes. Since the first class was just pushing the kids to their limit, the next class was just not grasping it. And, since they're twelve, they get the I'm-confused giggles. I was so frustrated, and realized I would have been smarter to split the lesson into two days, but couldn't adjust the agenda on such short notice. Next year. By the time the third class rolled around, I did better, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the first one.
That evening was Back to School Night, so I was at school until 8. It was an inspiring experience, because the event is mandatory, so the building was packed with caring parents. I had the opportunity to introduce myself, and then was swarmed by a dozen parent all wanting to know how their child was doing. I think I did a good job of being honest, but not too honest that it would be inappropriate in front of a room full of other parents (and some kids). It was fun, and challenging, and exhausting.
Thursday was the test, and it went better than expected. I've only graded two class sets so far, but they were 84% and 81%. More kids understand slope than I thought, although a few students were still missing questions on controls and variables. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to include these concepts in with the rest of the course. I saved the best class for last, though, and I'm hoping they can break 85%.
The exciting part about Lab Coat Friday is that it was the due date of our first lab report final draft. The rough drafts were handed in Wednesday, and I got a wide range of work. I gave some feedback, and received a beautiful collection of 7th grade lab reports on Friday. I'm really excited to look at them, although it'll take a long time to grade all of them. I really emphasized that I prefer typed to written, although I couldn't require it. Some students did a beautiful job of formatting, and others...didn't. I had to juggle some flash drives in the morning, and print out a dozen lab reports from my email, but it was worth it. These assignments are beautiful. Now I have to decide whether to take off points on professionalism from a student's report because he ended it with, "P.S. :Ms. Zelman ROCKS!!!!!!!! P.S.S :Ms. Zelman is the best female science teacher in the entire universe." (The 5th and 6th grade teachers are both male.)
I think I'm gonna like it here.
Wednesday included my best and worst classes so far this year. The lesson was on calculating the slope of a line, which I didn't realize before is a very abstract concept, the kind that you either get or you don't. My first class in the morning was just getting it. It was a tough lesson, and I managed to really challenge the kids for a whole 55 minutes. The lesson was going well from the start, so I was really getting into it and the kids were getting into it and the whole thing snowballed into a whole high-on-teaching sort of deal. I ended up with a bunch of happy and engaged kids who really understood the material.
Unfortunately, what I didn't consider at the time was that the morning class tends to perform a little bit better than the other classes. Since the first class was just pushing the kids to their limit, the next class was just not grasping it. And, since they're twelve, they get the I'm-confused giggles. I was so frustrated, and realized I would have been smarter to split the lesson into two days, but couldn't adjust the agenda on such short notice. Next year. By the time the third class rolled around, I did better, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the first one.
That evening was Back to School Night, so I was at school until 8. It was an inspiring experience, because the event is mandatory, so the building was packed with caring parents. I had the opportunity to introduce myself, and then was swarmed by a dozen parent all wanting to know how their child was doing. I think I did a good job of being honest, but not too honest that it would be inappropriate in front of a room full of other parents (and some kids). It was fun, and challenging, and exhausting.
Thursday was the test, and it went better than expected. I've only graded two class sets so far, but they were 84% and 81%. More kids understand slope than I thought, although a few students were still missing questions on controls and variables. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to include these concepts in with the rest of the course. I saved the best class for last, though, and I'm hoping they can break 85%.
The exciting part about Lab Coat Friday is that it was the due date of our first lab report final draft. The rough drafts were handed in Wednesday, and I got a wide range of work. I gave some feedback, and received a beautiful collection of 7th grade lab reports on Friday. I'm really excited to look at them, although it'll take a long time to grade all of them. I really emphasized that I prefer typed to written, although I couldn't require it. Some students did a beautiful job of formatting, and others...didn't. I had to juggle some flash drives in the morning, and print out a dozen lab reports from my email, but it was worth it. These assignments are beautiful. Now I have to decide whether to take off points on professionalism from a student's report because he ended it with, "P.S. :Ms. Zelman ROCKS!!!!!!!! P.S.S :Ms. Zelman is the best female science teacher in the entire universe." (The 5th and 6th grade teachers are both male.)
I think I'm gonna like it here.
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