Blue Skies...post-Ike happiness!

Now that Ike is over, and I've been back at school for four days, I have to admit that I don't mind my job a bit. At least, not very much. On Monday, we had a day back at school just for the teachers, so that we could all adapt our lesson plans to the events of the hurricane. I enjoyed my day mostly in the solitude of my room, getting activities together, sending copies to be made, and straightening things up. I am really glad we had that day, because it refreshed me and got me caught up for the rest of the week. Now, Ike seems like a hundred years ago.

On Tuesday, when the kiddos came back, I found myself actually glad to see them! I was surprised at myself, as I had thought that my week back would be full of discipline problems due to the week they had off. One especially delicious moment on that first day back was right before first period, when I had a student tell me that they were so bored already on the second day off of school that they picked up their Latin text (amazing, I know) and began to read the culture sections that we had not had time to cover in class. Imagine my surprise! I don't give these little people enough credit.

On Wednesday, my darling left. He got a job, and is off to the Great Lakes for a month or maybe a little more, depending on this or that. It has been difficult these last two days. The apartment is quiet with out another person's noise, and empty without another person's mess. I lived in it for a month alone before he got here, so it's back to the olden days when I cooked for one. The upside (for me) to his job on the Lakes is that he is in the States, so I get to talk to him, and use Skype. Yay!

All this week, my English students have been writing personal narratives (a.k.a. stories about something that happened to them which they learned from or will never forget). This is their first composition of the year, besides little half-paged warm-ups they've had to write. I've read four or five of them, and am actually really pleased so far. If my pen runs out of ink, it will be because of grammar fixes, but not because of content, which is the most important thing. Some of these kids have had really awful things happen to them, the likes of which I can't even begin to imagine. They seem to take it in stride, mostly, but I would rather they all had perfect childhoods like I had. I guess it builds character...?

Oh, another wonderful moment came regarding the warm-ups we've been doing this week. They have had to copy a sentence with grammatical errors, and then correct it. We then go over it as a class. Today, two students (one in 4th period, one in 7th) asked if we could go back to the half-page prompted writings we used to do before this week's grammar warm-ups. I was really surprised at this, because they would hem and haw, complaining about having to write half a page OMG OMG OMG. It made me very happy to know that they preferred writing to copying.

Ah! Another excited moment for me was in 2nd period Latin. I have a student who doesn't say much, but I know the student understands what is going on, because that student's grades are really good on things we have to do in class where they can't look up information, like on tests and quizzes. Today, we introduced the irregular verb, "to be" (sum). It is a booger. They've never seen an irregular verb, so they panicked a little bit. I made it seem as similar to a regular verb as possible, and they calmed down some. Anyway, the student asked some really great questions, and has been contributing more this week. The student asked what the word is for "to want," and I conjugated volo for the class. When so-and-so asked for the infinitive (velle), I couldn't remember. I looked it up, though. I get to answer fun questions like those in 2nd period because that class is smaller, and we have an extra five minutes for announcements and the like.

In other news, apparently I act like every day is the first day of school, according to one of my students. I won't say where I got the information, but I feel like I should be flattered.

This is a long post, but I must record one more thing. I hate to end on a bad note, and I don't think it will be bad ultimately, so I'll go ahead and put it. I had to admit I was wrong today. Alas (eheu!)! I had let 3rd period use the lap-tops (we have carts with 18 laptops in them and a printer, called COWs, or Computers on Wheels, that teachers can check out and use) to work on various things, then 4th period came in, and a student asked if they were going to get to use the lap-tops. I told the student, "No." Later, I let some kids use the lap-tops, and the student, along wtih two or three other students, called me out on it. I was defensive at first, but then just admitted I was wrong. They settled down really fast, and were content to let it go. One student, who had been especially offended by my misdeed, got a personal apology for the confusion regarding the computers. I'm glad I admitted my mistake rather than steadfastly refusing to budge on the matter. Teachers are human too, it turns out.

Valete,
Magistra