Lately

First, the good news: only 3 more weeks till Thanksgiving.

Last week I was observed by a classroom management consultant that was hired by DeKalb County to "assist" in low performing schools. Of course, this lady chose to observe my Freshman class in the 20 minutes that they have after lunch before the end of class. This is probably the worst 20 minutes of every day for me, but that's what she chose to observe. In my experience, when a teacher is being observed, the students are usually on their best behavior, whether it is to make themselves look good or to help out their teacher. Well, not my little darlings. They decided to go right on talking, walking around, eating, cursing, etc. I haven't heard the observer's official comments yet, but I'm sure I'll have to have some sort of training or action plan or something that sounds good but won't work.

Today, for reasons that have still not been revealed to me, my co-teacher (special education teacher) in my wild 4th period class, was traded. I now have a younger, much more intimidating co-teacher who, in the 30 minutes he was with us today, had already kicked out 2 students. I'll miss my first co-teacher, but think I am going to enjoy watching this class be scared of their new situation. After they were so rude and hateful toward the first teacher, I think they may be beginning to regret complaining about him.

I've gotten 3 new students in the last 4 school days. This is not ideal.

My geography class is moving along quickly, whether the kids are ready or not. Since they have 9 weeks to learn about the whole world, we spend about one week on each major geographical region. I don't think much of it is sticking with them, though, especially since we have pretty much no time to review. I handed one student a map of Asia today and he asked me if it was the United States. I'm failing.