So yes, less than four weeks left, which means my last post was forever ago, so of course the report is that life continues to be hectic. Last week I had the equivalent of a 40 page paper due for my credentialing program, so naturally I waited until the last minute and wrote the whole thing in one weekend. In my defense, this credentialing program is bogus; TFA has taught me everything and anything I need for this job. In fact, we were informed that due to such poor reviews of the program, TFA will be sending their new teachers elsewhere to get credentialed. I could have called that.
I had it all planned out in my mind back during Christmas break: during second semester I would catch up on lesson planning and grading so that my life would be a little more relaxing than the first four months. And yet here we are in the middle of May and I am still planning lessons the night before - every night - with humongous stacks of grading to be done on the weekend. I actually can't wait to have some spare time this summer to organize things and get things set ahead of time. Of course, it would be nice to get a head-start on that now, but then that would prevent me from enjoying such things as the annual "Bay to Breakers" San Francisco run. You might be surprised to hear that I did not wear running attire or in fact run at all, but instead dressed up as Donatello the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and walked through the streets of the city with a number of Bud Lights. The event, which at 7am is a true running event, becomes a drunken parade at around eight. Just about everyone dresses up or dresses down - there were numerous old naked men and women - so it is a crazy experience to say the least. That was just yesterday, so I did feel a little guilty nursing the remains of my headache today. Worth it!
When you have a countdown in your room until the end of school, it is hard to stay 100% motivated all the time, so it's no surprise that it's even harder to get the students to take the rest of the year seriously. The frustrating thing is that everyone seems to be reversing roles: my chronically absent and F students are suddenly interested in what they can do to pass and my higher-achieving students suddenly realized that they can slack off and still get that C they were aiming for. I think it is pretty clear that these students aren't used to taking class seriously when the year is nearing a close. Most students have told me that school's pretty much over when CSTs are over, which scared me a little since this is when everyone does their cumulative review for their final exam. Our final is at the end of next week, so in only nine class days I will be able to see exactly how much my students learned this year. Yikes.
High school prom is this Friday and this time around I'm a chaperone. I still hold that I don't think I'm a very good chaperone choice for an event where my age is even less obvious due to the fact that everyone will be dressed up - I no longer have that advantage in looking older. The dance is in San Francisco, so I'm not too worried about anything happening this time. The homecoming incident was more a product of the surrounding community, so I think having it in the city was a good choice.
That being said, there still always seems to be something happening in or around school to bring morale back down. Last Friday one of my students came in first period to tell me all about how four people were shot right outside of his house the night before - he heard it and saw the aftermath. This is a 15 year-old! The story came a day after a resource specialist teacher informed me of the awful and disturbing news that one of my special education students had tried to end her own life by hanging herself but did not succeed because she did not know how to do it. This was particularly upsetting to me last week because I am constantly disciplining students who bully her in my class, and yet I feel like there's more that I should be doing to prevent something as drastic as what could have been. I think she got transferred from my class, which in the end is definitely for the best. I've been told that mainstreaming special education students actually has a significant impact on their achievement compared to specialized schedules, but this here's a monster of a downside.
I hate to end the update on such a low note, so I figured as I lay here on top of my new sleeping bag I might as well introduce my summer plans. This weekend I made some very large purchases toward plans to hike the Washington section of the Pacific Crest Trail for about four weeks in July. I'm now equipped with a 15degree sleeping bag, a hiking backpack, a down jacket, rain gear, hiking boots, and all synthetic hiking clothes. I'm 100% committed and have the book purchases to prove it, so this only adds to the excitement of the approaching summer break. I'll be making the trek with a TFA friend and hopefully one of my cousins. Until then, we should probably practice and break in our gear, so perhaps we'll do that in a weekend or two.
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