People Who Can't Shut Up

Seven weeks. A student of mine spent seven weeks on one story, and he never completed it. One reason is that he didn't focus for any whole class period. The other is that he would not stop. As a writing teacher, my main focus with my students is on efficiency and effectiveness. Say what you need to say, say it clearly, say it well. Typically, students can't write more than 40 words on any given topic or event, but this fine gent is on the extreme opposite. In any given story, he clicks through his phone to ensure that every text message related to his story is accounted for. Every minute is spoken of, not in any great detail, but there it is, taking up space on the page. For this week, I told the student, "You're starting a new story. It can't go over 500 words." Because most student feign a heart attack at 500 words, I didn't expect today's comment.

"What if I go over 500 words?"

"Then we'll cut it down to 500."

The paper was at 800. "I'm kind of done, but I need to go back and add all the dialogue and stuff."

He keeps trying to add more into the story. It's about his weekend at NabrasKon, and I instructed him to write about one event. Just one. "What about one on Friday, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday?"

No. I don't need it. Even I, in all of my nerdy glory (I thought of grade points as experience points yesterday), don't need to read about your weekend that much. Focus on the small things. Make them interesting. Make them effective. Make them efficient. I conference with him on Friday. I'll be sharpening the knife.

So Far, I Like It

After day one of new class tactics, I think I will really enjoy it. For Comp, time flies by, and I have a scheduled time to yell at people when they don't turn things in. The only downside I'm seeing is that I have to stay organized and know what I'm going to say for each student before our conferences. So far, this hasn't been an issue. Today, I actually worked ahead (wasn't planning on that), and I had some dead parts in our conversation. I had a student ask me if I wanted her to come back after I knew what I wanted to say.

In General English, life was great for me. My co-teacher has volunteered to take the half of the class that never wants to do anything. My half isn't great, but they are a quiet bunch and mostly want to at least have something to do.

My biggest fear right now is taking a day off. For Gen English, it won't be bad, but I don't want to miss a day of conferences ever. So I guess I'll keep plugging along and hope that nothing unexpected shows up.

Trying New Things

This week, I'm starting something new with my classes. This seems to happen every year. I'll start the year, things will go pretty well, but I'll find that something is missing, and I go into trying something different.

In composition, the name of the game is conferences. I've split my classes into five equal groups, one group for each day of the week. Each day I'll meet with the people in that day's respective group. Each student will receive feedback specific to their work ethic and ability. Overall, I hope that this cuts down my grade time because I actually talk to each student every week.

In general English, I'm splitting the class into two. One side is made of students who have decided to move ahead and read on their own--basically, those who want to learn. And the other section are those that couldn't give two farts for education. With a co-teacher, one that hopefully shows up on time, we will trade off with the groups and work with them at different paces. This is not going to be as easy as composition, but will hopefully be more beneficial to those who want to learn something.

I didn't sleep too well last night, so I'm pretty tired. I may fall dead tonight..then rise from the dead to live again tomorrow.

Back to School and NaNoWriMo

Well, school started back yesterday, and I'm glad it did. It was really nice to have something to distract my brain from the weirdness that plagued it last week. However, I was reminded that there are some really brainless people out there. We are filling out forms for the PLAN test (pre-ACT) for my 10th graders. Part of the forms ask for students to identify whether or not the are affiliated with a religion. I've never see so many confused people. "I don't know what to put down." I would ask what church they went to and they would look at me and say, "I have no idea." I know that I wasn't always too observant growing up. But some of these kids go to church every week, and they have no idea what church they go to. Sad.

Even though I told myself I didn't have time, I signed up for NaNoWriMo again. We'll see how it goes. I stated on my idea and feel weird writing so much about vampires, werewolves, and zombies. It's not my usual style or interest, but if things work the way I hope, it could be pretty cool. Well, gotta go. Peace, home-fries.

50 Hour Week

Parent Teacher conferences are always a real pain. It's not that the parents are so bad. It's not that I don't want to see parents (because I do; way better that talking over the phone). The bane of it all is the extra eight hours I have to put in over the first two days.

I don't know what would make this necessary nuisance any better. Maybe line it up with a break or a long weekend. That would be awesome anyway because so many take a day off anyhow by the end of the week (apparently we have 8 teachers for which they couldn't find subs).

Luckily, my classes remain chill throughout the day and this weekend requires little to nothing of me. I will grade and read, play games, and not have to teach a Sabbath School lesson or preach. Stress should reduce, and life will be peachy.

In other news, I'm getting the itch to write again, but I'm truly distraught about how to go about it. Ideas are coming and going on a week that I can't focus on much of anything. And with my laptop urinated on and my destruction of my mouse for my desktop, I'm not sure how things will come to be (I've even been jotting down things by hand...BY HAND! It's all caveman-ish.).

Testing Day

Today is the first day in which we administer the Writing Graduation Demonstration Exam. For me this is one of the biggest days of the year as it determines which students I will have for years to come and which will be let loose upon the teachers who have to worry so little about writing deficiencies. From what I've seen so far today, I am pleased. Though many fine students will be disappearing from my classroom at the end of the semester or the end of the year, I am thrilled to see many of them move on to higher level classes that will challenge them and mold them into breathing, thinking, meat-bags that may do something with their lives that may come back and benefit me.

On the other hand, I can also see among the pages the students that will be my new BFFs for the next two years or more--those that either can't write well (I don't have a problem with them) and those who won't try (the most frustrating human beings on the planet).

So overall, it's a bit of a bizarre day as I watch them test away. But on the plus side, I'm cranking out more graded papers today than I have in weeks. Testing instead of teaching has a few benefits.

Good Times

Over the last almost-week, life has been pretty sweet. School started--which is kind of lame be cause I have to work--but I feel alive. I know, Cheesy City. But it does feel awesome to be in the classroom again, especially because I have a very low concentration of juice boxes in my classes. So I get to talk all I want, have a mostly captive audience, and the juice boxes I do have provide me with entertaining things with which to update my twitter ("You've got to be shitting me").

Last Thursday also brought me good times as a crew got together and went to RiffTrax Live. RiffTrax is one of the best things to happen to movies--mostly because so many movies are so very awful. To watch Plan 9 from Outer Space on a big screen was amusing enough, but laughing along with so many people is a pretty good time (except when they laughed hysterically at stuff that was pretty amusing and likely overwhelmed a line that would have been truly hilarious). Also Jonathan Coulton is a now an artist that I want to get into a bit more since I've had his awesome Future and Zombie songs get in my head.

The weekend also led to some groovy mini-golf. I don't even know when the last time was that I played that. Nine people in our group, and it was a blast, and I've been wanting to go back so bad ever since.

The week is starting out pretty well, now, but I've got allergies that are waging war against my face. It's pretty much lousy, but I suppose I'll live.

There Was a Whoosh Sound...

...and with it went my summer, leaving me parked in my school building like Dorothy was left in Oz (except I didn't kill a witch upon entry--not a bad idea though). I look forward to the beginning of school because it hasn't changed much from when I came as a student--I see friends that I haven't seen since last Spring. This is awesome, primarily because teachers love to talk to teachers. I feel sorry for my wife from time to time when she hangs out with me and a group of teacher-friends (constant griping, usually).

I also like school because, usually, it equips me with writing material. There are so many nutty people that wander these halls that I don't even have to think anymore when I sit down to write. These first days, though, are insane, leaving me with little time to do much of anything. Starting next week, though, I will likely be posting every day again with silly happenings and psychotic activities of my young scholars.

Drama

Last Wednesday, a student had her iPod stolen from her purse. She sits right next to the door, rarely stays in her seat, and doesn't seem to focus on a whole lot. When she realized the iPod was stolen (after class and after most of the class had walked by her purse), she nearly melted down. I understand that. Having things stolen is a cruel and horrible thing. What sucks more, though, is that now, almost a week later, she has returned to class and is questioning and accusing everybody. One student was officially questioned and searched last week. Nothing was found on him, so now the victim is trying to play investigator. She accuses everyone, and frankly, everyone is getting pissed.

One girl told me she won't be back for the rest of the week because she can't stand being asked one more time. Of course, that's no good.

Another student had an iPod stolen today, but she is just sad and bummed out. No swearing, no accusing, nothing irrational.

The first girl stolen from, carried another iPod with her in class today...

From Wolverine to Lord of the Flies and Beyond

I said I'd talk Tuesday about Wolverine, and as tends to happen, life got in the way and I lost myself in whirl of my week. So here are the thoughts of all sorts of things this week.

Wolverine: I've tried to make myself think better of it since I saw it last weekend, and though I'm coming closer to not hating it, I still have images of young or normal Wolverine looking straight up into a sky camera and yelling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Another teaacher said he saw it and thought it was pretty good. I experienced this kind of thing last year when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hit theaters. This other teacher tosses in little bits he knows about Wolverine and says how well the movie captured it. It really only bothered him that they made Logan from Northern Territories instead of Ontario (this teacher is Canadian and apparently wants to make sure this fact is straight).

Film Snob: Sitting in the theater for the first time in about two months, and on a Saturday night no less, I realized how much of a snob I am. As people crowded around me and their banter filled my ears, I began to hunch in my seat, trying to shield myself from these people feel is crucial film knowledge. In particular, the people right behind commented on the slides and advertisements that flashed on the screen. "Orlando Bloom has Elven script tattooed around his wrist," the screen informed us.

"Actually," the patron behind me added, "all the actors in that movie got tattoos like that."

"Really?" asked his friends, in obvious awe of his vast and powerful intellect.

I began to think of David Sedaris' essay about theaters in Europe that are perfectly silent that play old classics all day. I craved that. With Wolverine being especially crappy, I really, really craved that. Instead though I thought about Shepherd book's information about the special ring of hell for people who talk in theaters...that made me smile.

Christ Figure: We recently read the part of The Lord of the Flies where Simon staggers into the chanting savage tribe and gets beaten to death. This in mind, we spent a day to talk about the use of a Christ figure. It was a thrill to be able to talk so much about Christ. It pops up from time to time, but I don't get to go into any details about things. This allowed the opportunity to say a great deal more than normal on the subject. In each class, students asked in one way or another if this way something that we could even be talking about at school. As one student put it: "Is this English or church?" My favorite parts were that students said more than I did about who Jesus was and the good news that his story is.

Misrepresentation: With my wife's magazine poised to boost and praise Christian schools, she and I talked a lot about common beliefs about public school from people who have never set foot in one. "I can't say the name of Jesus, or else..." That kind of thing. It is really too bad that there is so much fear about unleashing kids to the evil place of public school while not understanding how much can be done in those places.

Parents: My folks will be in town this weekend for my brother's wife's college graduation. It will be groovy. I've not seen my parents since Christmas and it seems that it's been about as long since I seen my brother and his wife. Though this makes for a busy weekend, it should mean it's a good one.

Lord of the Flies

This week, I'm starting the novel with my English Ten class. To get them in the mindset, I asked them to write about how they would plan to survive if our class were stranded on an island. The responses were generally amusing with mentions of cannibalism (always makes me laugh...that's weird), monkeys, and the general class vibes about other class members. Throughout the papers though, one line just made me laugh.

"I would find my own little spot & gathered up all the black people & try 2 figure something out."

The writer continues to explain the eradication of the weak and making sure there is a boy to do all the hard work.

Some People...

This has just been a good week for people to say weird things.

I assigned my composition class the task of looking up images on Google and then describing them in as much detail as possible. The idea was for them to find flowers, cars, landscapes, anything that would be school appropriate. However, before I could get the point of clarifying what the students should look for a student piped up.

"Can we look at things that are sexual in nature?"

I was thrown off enough that he even asked. But after all the girls called him a pervert, he just shrugged and said, "Can't a guy ask a question?"

Needs to Come to His Senses

I was reading a paper I assigned in class about what students would change their names to if they had the chance. I had one student say that if he had a different name, it would be "Desperado."

Parent Teacher Conferences

I spent 12 hours at my school yesterday, and I'm doing it again today. Parent/Teacher conferences are not my favorite time of the semester. And though things went well yesterday, I am beat. I think of people who work massive shifts at hospitals or oil platforms who work for days straight and then take so many days off. Even with naps or whatever in between, I think my puny body would just not take it.

Overall, though, the conferences do allow me the opportunity to test the parental waters for support. It's all sorts of unfortunate when you don't have any support from home, and it's very reassuring to find some folk that will whip their kids into shape so I don't have to. And aside from the occasional mother staring at me like a dairy cow on the verge of being hit by a train, I found a lot of good support. Hopefully tonight will be equally supportive.

I'm a Mean Old Man

"Mr. Prindle, I hear your all strict this semester."

The student was mine during first semester's General English, one noted by the goods times had by most. Apparently, one of my students that still has me this semesters relayed to her old comrades that I have slid to the stricter side of things. I laughed. To my knowledge, I am the least strict teacher I know. The amount of stuff that kids get away with is insane, and I know that any other English teacher would have destroyed half my kids within the first week. So in my new Composition class, I've instructed that students need to stay in their assigned seats. Everybody's makin' a fuss. It's like I ask them to sit on red-hot shards of glass for an hour.

"Why can't I sit over there so I can talk with my friends?"

I give a stare that I hope comes across as, "Did you just hear what you asked?"

I think the message gets through because they follow up with, "I won't talk. I'll work hard."

"You're absolutely right, you will work hard...from right here, in your assigned seat."

So I've finally done it. I'm a mean teacher. O joyous day!