Last couple of days have been okay. DQ#1 has seriously cooled her jets, just a simple "stop" from me has her falling all over herself to apologize. Her mom must have put the fear of God (or maybe summer school) into her. Cool! Not too many other problems. I know I'm going to jinx myself by saying this but I think that maybe we hit bottom and are starting to recover.
Tomorrow is the big "sophmore advisory competition." It seems to be overplanned and yet underplanned and somehow unnecessaryily complicated. Granted we're talking about pulling 600 students and 1/3 of the teaching staff out of their regular classes, so I guess complicated is par for the course. Needless to say, the sophmores will be useless tomorrow all day.
Friday is prom, so 90% of the senior class will be gone. College Prep and above juniors were out today and will be again tomorrow for a big english project presentation. It's nice that the english department coordinates a large project like that.
Had a party for my advisory (aka homeroom). I brought in five large pizzas that I bought last night and had in the fridge. There's nothing like a morning party with cold pizza and cookies. LOL
Taught my basic math students a little html coding. They sopped it up like wet mops. Any misgivings about the "lower level students" having little to no ability to retain has just been blown out of the water. What they don't have the ability to do is learn because it is expected. They need a reason. Who doesn't?
I brought this up at the daily math department meeting (aka lunch) and a veteran teacher told me that if there's no interest then there's not synapsis firing in their brains and therefore not retention. She even said "even I find this stuff boring" and we all agreed. I left thinking, "then why in the fuck haven't we done anything about it?????!!!!!!" Why do we keep using the same methods and getting pissed off when we see the same results.
My new textbook idea for next year isn't going to fly because of "board policy." So we have to buy the text that we adopted even if it is a piece of shit and even if a better alternative won't cost a thing (well, photocopies, but we'd make thosed anyway). Why? OGT. We have mappings that dictate what sections we cover and when, almost down to the day. And we will have a commom department exam. Deviation is sadly not really an option. I'm starting to feel like a robot again, I shouldn't have brought this up.
Anyway, I'm trying to come up with overarching units, like in elementary schools, that I can do with each Chapter of our textbook. Maybe even tie it into a job that these students are likely to get into. For the area/volume/basic geometry chapter, maybe use architechture and construction or something. It will take a lot of time which is the main reason that I usually put this kind of thing off. However, we have some young blood teaching these classes next year, so maybe we can work together on something like this. If we lay the groundwork over the summer, it will be easier to keep it going throughout the year.
The only thing I know for sure is that we have to do something. These students just can't/don't/won't function allow themselves to learn anything in a traditional setting.
Home life is good. The pursuit of parenthood is continuing and the dogs are healthy and happy. I wish I weighed about 40 pounds less, but who doesn't. Cold pizza in the morning didn't help LOL.
Today's Tally:
- Weight: 178.6
- Calorie Intake: 3000
- Exercise: -550
- Net Calories: 2450
- Toning: 24 crunches, 16 oblique crunches, 8 leg drops, 24 push-ups (no noticable results yet, but I haven't been very consitant either)
- Overall Feeling: Regret for eating poorly at the class party and having no resistance. I did skip lunch however, so at least I didn't just keep on eating. Though if there had been a yummy lunch option, I probably would have taken it. I'm so pathetic.