Headaches and Happiness

That's my day went today. 3rd hour English 9 was another headache experience. I decided to take a risk and try having students work with a partner again, just a 10-minute experience to try to make learning a little more enjoyable. What do I get? Well, on the bright side, I had several groups come up with some creative epic similes for the assigned topic. On the not so bright side, I have students shooting spitwads behind my back, one which hits a student who proceeds to yell, "You sick f---!" (We had a little talk about that and a detention was served after class.) Then, when the students were leaving for lunch (we have lunch in the middle of third hour), and I was erasing the board, guess who got hit by a spitwad? Yes, that's right, me. So Linda and I found the pile of spitwads sitting on the desk of where 4 boys were "working" together," so I kept them after class and gave them all detentions after talking about how I was tired of them disrupting my class. They refused to sign and took their detentions to the office. I told Linda and she said that those detentions would probably never see the office and that I should email the assistant principal.

Well, rather than email, I decided to go visit the assistant principal, and when I got to the office, these 4 boys were there talking to the principal and Linda, so I joined the conversation. We talked some more: I explained my logic, they denied throwing the spit wads, I told them that since 3 of them were sophomores I expected more leadership and maturity from them. Dr. Neat (the principal) decided we should give these guys a second chance. So no detentions.

The bright side: These guys actually cared about something! They went to the office to stand up for themselves! The not so bright side: I have to have ANOTHER conversation with this freshman class about maturity and respect.

Happiness. My CW went well today. We have started on short story, and I had them write character sketches. Today some students shared these in class while I and some students asked them questions about their characters. The best part: As we were doing this exercise, one of my students (who always blurts things out in class) said, "Man, you really love this stuff! Look how much you're getting into this!" and she smiled. I could not receive a better compliment. :)