So we have a new principal who seems like he is full of crap and is there for a paycheck. He is too happy-go-lucky and takes nothing seriously. The vice-principal has never even been a real teacher. If you wanna call study hall and drivers education real teaching. He seems illerate at speech and thought. The school seems like the kids are just taking over this year. He sucks at discipline. We are not striving for level 5, instead we are striving for level FUN and MAINTAINING. A lot of my old students are very unhappy with some of their new teachers who are not teaching anything!!! Just bookwork and a test of Friday. Yeah, I give bookwork sometime because the problems are in the book, but I teach at the beginning of class and walk around and help my students. I interact with them. I have been on football game duty for the lat 4 home games...WHAT???? Also shows who lazy the VP is....does not even know how to rotate duties. He also gives us our duty the Thursday before the game on Friday. This is not enough notice and it pitiful on his part. As a teacher, you do not know who to take your concern too- if you take it to the administration they think you are against them or a big complainer, if you take it to the superintedent or the board your administration will think you are trying to get them fired, if you take it to MTC they will just say "yeah that is how things are. Just deal with it". So I will just blog about it and do what I have to do...don't go to duty when I get 24 hour notice and strive as far as the other teachers are striving at my school, since it seems to be ok with the principal.

First Fight in my Class

On Wednesday, Oct 4 I had the first fight in my class of the year. I little light-skin curly hair boy named C.W. (who thinks he is a thug but looks really really boysish and young) got into a fight in the cafeteria. I heard him talking "stuff" the entire morning in the hallway and when he got into my class 4th period he turned to a student and said he was going to whip his cousin's tail. The funny thing is C.W. is only 5'6 and 120 pds and has a dimple when he smiles. Well we get to lunch and about 15 minutes into lunch I see him stand up and start yelling at the boy and the boy came toward him and they started fighting and the VP and our "school security guard" broke it up 5 minutes later. My students of course got up and some edged them on and many of the girls ran to get out of the way of harm. I got up and told my students to dump their tray and walk out to the hall and get in line. They did and of course I was just thinking fast and moving fast because I didn't know what to do. I got back to the classroom to calm them down and give them their nine-week exam. Later on that day I found out that C.W. ran away from the school after they VP let go of him and that he also has been to jail before and is on probation. I don't know what is going to happen with him, but he is probably getting the attention and "street credit" he wants. It is very sad and I am getting sick of the whol situation at my school this year.

Motivating Students

Even as a second year teacher there are many things that I do not know. I still have not found my teaching style or know how to deal with kids who ultimately in the end will not graduate from college but are staying in school to eat breakfast and lunch and come for the social party. I don't know how to deal with or talk to administration or even how to get students to understand to bring paper and pencil to class. As far as motivation...last year I had a class (Transition to Algebra) of 12 sophomores who knew that they would pass my class for some reason and eventually go to Algebra I next year. It was very tough in the beginning because most of them had an I don't care attitude. Soon I started giving pop quizzes and REALLY averaging them into their grade. I also started bringing candy sometimes and during the spring we started walking around the school twice if they were good at lunch and did their work in class the day before. But this year (due to extra expenses...a car note) I am doing motivation through grades and walking outside (only for my smaller classes).