I.T. to Teacher

My ACP observer came by this week to observe one of my classes. She stopped by at the beginning of my AP Physics C class and stayed for about 45 minutes. We were doing a lab, so it was an easy day for me. An easy day in one of my easy classes; a perfect day for an observation!

It went well. Nothing much to say about it. Class was uneventful. Afterwards, she gave me my review and raved about how good I was. I mentioned that these were good kids and lab days are easy, but she said that the smart kids are sometimes the hardest to handle. Ok, if she says so. The stories I hear from teachers down the hall make me think I fell into the secret good spot in public education.

Some good excuses I've heard so far this year:

"You're not going to believe this, but a dog really did eat my homework."

"My bag was stolen last night with all my physics stuff in it."


Overheard:

I don't know what the students were talking about, but I heard the words "TI-83 calculator" and "wet T-shirt contest" in the same sentence. I really wish I heard the rest of the sentence.

My students were taking a test when we heard this bit of teacher instruction issued from the other side of the wall: "Don't poke your eye out!"

This weekend I went to a club with a few people, one being a friend from another school, and another being her college roommate. I found out that Roommate is the daughter of an art teacher at my school (who I believe has the room directly below mine), and has a brother who goes to my school. Small world.

At the end of one of my classes today I let the students start on their homework. I'm talking to a group of students and one of them says, "Hey, Mr. ..., I hear you went clubbing this weekend."

The words "Huh?!", "Wha....?", and "Uhhhh?" went through my head at this point.

I'm sure you see where this came from. He's friends with Roommate's sister.

Apparently news travels fast at school.

In one of my AP classes I have 3 varsity volleyball players (all with the same name, incidentally). I didn't know this. Well, I didn't know this until I had gone to a JV game with some other teachers and was leaving afterwards to go to dinner with them. As I was walking out I ran into my 3 students getting ready for the varsity game which followed the JV game. I also saw 2 of my students who are varsity cheerleaders. So now I have 5 of my students giving me a hard time about leaving before the varsity game starts. I would have stayed, but I hadn't eaten all day and was running on 3 hours of sleep so I just wanted to eat and sleep (this is Friday afternoon). I told them to bring me a schedule to put on the classroom wall, and I would go to their next home game.

I was surprised at how excited they were to see me and how much they wanted me to stay for their game. I didn't realize it would be that big of a deal to have a teacher watching their game. I went to their most recent home game (which they won) which was right before back to school night. The parents of my 3 volleyballers told me their daughters were excited to see me at the game, and when I saw my volleyballers today they seemed to think it was very cool that I had seen their game.

I had fun, so I'll try to go to more events that my students are in.

The Drill Team chose me as their "Teacher of the Week" for last week. A girl I didn't know came into my room at the start of lunch with a decorated star to give me. She told me I was the Drill Team's "Teacher of the Week." I was surprised, and asked how I had done that. She said that the junior girls voted on it and I won. I was all smiles.

My wife said, "Awww, how cute. They have a crush on you."

I hit a milestone today.

Tomorrow will be the first day that I will be using photocopies I have made that were not made early in the morning before school started. That means I'm actually a little ahead! I was prepared enough to make my copies after school today rather than my usual routine of getting to school early to make copies before the machine gets busy. Now I don't have to go to school tomorrow hoping the machines are working.

Last night was back to school night. That's the night where the parents can come and sit in their kid's classes and listen to the teacher give a 7 minute talk about the class. I was nervous going into it since I have had very little parent interaction so far. I've been given various advice from other teachers:

"Don't let them know you're a new teacher; even if you have to lie."
"Just feel out the group and decide if you will tell them you are new to teaching."

"Talk bell to bell. Do not allow them to ask questions."
"Let them ask questions."
"I wouldn't plan time for questions, but questions are fine."

Really helpful.

Things went fine. The 7 minutes goes really quickly when you're used to talking for 90 minutes at a time. My first class had time for a few harmless questions, but after that I'd swear the periods got shorter and shorter. By the end of the night I felt like I had just gotten started when the bell rang.

When parents were entering my room I stood holding the door open and greeting them as they came in. Most of them would introduce themselves and tell me who their child is. I had one parent walk right past me as I started to say "Hello, I'm Mr. ...." She then turned around and looked at me and asked, "Oh, are you a teacher?" I'm guessing I'm younger than she was expecting.

I had many good comments from parents. Several told me they were very happy that I am someone who knows physics, and appears to really like it. Many of their children had teachers in the past who were teaching physics because they were assigned it, not because they chose it.

I got paid today! It's my first real check since November. I'm finally a producing member of society again. More importantly, I'm no longer reliant on my lovely wife for cash.

During 1st period, we got the word over the loudspeaker that we were in a "hold in place" condition. I looked on my trusty emergency cheat sheet and saw that that fell under the "Chemical" tab. That can't be good.

We can't let the students leave (fortunately I didn't have any), and we can't leave the rooms until further notice. This drags on and on. Around the end of 1st period they announce that there is a bat in the building and we'll have to wait another 30-40 minutes for animal control to come get it.

We spent well over an hour in this condition, missing a good part of the 2nd period of the day. I later heard that the bat was small enough that the animal control person carried it away in something the size of a sandwich bag. Not only that, but it was just hanging on a wall sleeping. For all they put us through you'd have thought it was a monstrous bat with glowing red eyes flying around terrorizing girls with long hair.

Our scantron machines died today, with progress reports due Tuesday and everyone in the building rushing to get a test grade in.  Fortunately, I did not give a scantron test.  I just have a stack of labs and tests to grade by hand.  Hmmm, not sure who is getting the raw end of the deal there.

My first 3 day weekend as a teacher is going to be spent grading 90 lab reports, 90 tests, 30 quizzes, and misc. makeup work.  Should be an exciting labor day!

The bathroom door in our department office doesn't work.  If you lock the deadbolt from the inside and turn the handle from the inside, the handle won't turn.  However, if you turn the handle on the outside, the deadbolt retracts and the door opens.  I'm glad I wasn't the one to discover that.

I've remembered that I can email my posts in.  Now I can post from school so you should be hearing more from me.