Monday, Feb. 07, 2005
Mockingbird start, posted at 5:55 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Today felt really good in school. The kids were all on the same page with me, and all seemed as relaxed as I feel. The three days of professional development definitely recharged my professional battery, and I'm currently all caught up on planning and grading. Tomorrow, I'm trying something a colleague presented on during our professional days. She put a poem on a big piece of posterboard and had us walk around, in groups, and comment on the poem. We then went around and commented on others' poems. It was cool and made me notice new things about the poem as I went. I'm going to do it with Frankenstein passages, and I think it's going to work well. I'm hoping this class proves to me that they're not just a bunch of kids who don't care about school. Seventeen - 17! - kids in that class didn't turn in their film review essay to me when it was due yesterday.I'm making all my 9th graders who did not score at least an 80 write me a letter explaining what happened last semester and how they plan on changing it this semester. I'm hoping it's useful for them. 45 out of 104 ninth graders failed for the second quarter, and 38 for the semester. Most of the failures are in the 60-69 range, though, and all of them have a chance at passing for the year. Most of them have a good chance. The school has a habit of making life hard for people who fail a lot of students, but this does not daunt me; I'm not going to lower expectations or placate anyone at this stage in my career.
Listen to me, I sound like a surly veteran. This might be the year I become one. I'm tenured, my certification is in line through 2009, and I am in the upper third in the school in terms of seniority. I've seen three principals come and go. I still feel like there's a lot I have to learn about teaching, but am getting more cocky about how I deal with those who manage me.
I shouldn't complain, though; today was a great day. I even didn't mind the faculty meeting, where the principal apologized for her sexist remarks from last week. Life is pretty good at school. Tonight's a long run night, so I'm off to do that.