March On!

Will it ever end? March, that is? This year? Oh my word. I figured out, however, how I managed to get through this awful month last year, though. Went on the South Carolina roadtrip - and am proud to say that Prep isn't going to any of the schools we traipsed through last year. But, it was fun!!

So, the first thing in getting through March next year is to take BrownBear on Spring Break. (If I have a job next year.) Even if it means taking it without pay - I don't care. I have to do something to break up this month.

The fifth graders are terrifying this year. I've been teaching on and off since 1986. That year, I was very, very young and I was teaching 9th graders who were 16 and 17 and some of them were pregnant. You can imagine how effective I was.

This year has been worse. The unpreparedness, the lack of respect, the wholescale refusal to do any work on their part - 3/4ths of them are miserable.

But, wait. Is that the tropical breeze of Cancun calling my name? I believe so. June isn't so far away at all.

Baffled by the Bull

Haven't written because of the amount of bull swirling about my head. I am planning for what we are sarcastically referring to as "springtime summer school" and am dealing with the a skinhead family who is causing strife in our grade as well as the picking and name calling that occasionally goes on with 5th graders. (Or maybe not... I've got one throwing around the f bomb.)

This "springtime summer school" has arisen because the county has decided not to pay for summer school for the kids who do not pass the super big state test. We have to decide BEFORE test results come back who HASN'T passed the test and begin prepping them for the re-test, which will be given before school is over for the year. Do I look like the Wizard of Oz? We had to tell parents before we have even given the test that we think their kid is going to fail and we are going to prep them before results come back for a retest that they might not even have to take.

Is anyone in the central office using his brain for anything besides a seat cushion?

Spring Break???

My daughters started Spring Break yesterday. Prep is going to the beach (have you seen the weather reports down there) this morning, while poor BrownBear has to make the best of it here. But as I told her, ten days without school or homework at home is better than ten days at school with her schedule.

Since the wheels have come off the bus at school, we are in desperate need of a break. One of my teammates just said, "It's still third quarter?" Uh, yes, honey. It's still third quarter. The quarter that wouldn't end.

Way Too Early

So sorry to have been away for so long, but so much, so much, has been going on that I haven't had time to write about it. Let me whet your appetite: racism in my classroom, more snow - early release and late starts, my arch enemy is going on the senior trip after graduation with me, state writing assessment, Weight Watchers, working out! Wow! I am rife with ideas and I have no time to write - see the time stamp? Got to run right now, too. I promise, I'll be back.