week 7: testing drives us all insane

"Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?" Confucius

"Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power." Clint Eastwood

We are FINALLY done with our fall round of NWEA testing! Wahoo! I am not sorry to say goodbye to testing, although I will miss the chance to watch movies all morning...we saw 3 last week: "The Karate Kid" (the ORIGINAL, which has Ralph Macchio in it, who I recognized primarily from "The Outsiders"), "James and the Giant Peach," and "Stand and Deliver" (which is my NEW favorite teaching movie - inspiring, sappy but with great acting).

I met with the Reading Specialist at the high school on Friday. We're almost 7 weeks in to the school year, but I've been having great feelings of trepidation about the reading classes. Since I have the 6th graders for LA as well as Reading, it's been an odd thing trying to keep the classes separate but equal. Not only that, but now that we have seen our NWEA scores, it's official how low the general reading skills are in our student population.

Now that I see what lies before us, I am overwhelmed, but feeling more prepared to organize the amorphous mass of information called Ms. Branch's Reading Class. It's so nice to have a principal that is not asking me to move a mountain but rather provide proof of progress.

Speaking of progress - I have apparently made none in the area of "creating an environment of respect and rapport." A frequent troublemaker threw a massive spitball (2 " wide) onto my Smartboard on Friday. I was so appalled and angry that I know I did not act very Christlike - I kicked him out and another kid who was being disrespectful, then I made the rest of the class write a definition of respect for the classroom and write a word of advice to me for making our classroom a respectful place.

My principal is so tired of seeing the same guys from my class that she announced to these students that any more visits from them to her office will result in a 1 day suspension, no questions asked or discussion allowed.

It is so discouraging to me that I can't think of ways to build respect and kindness into my classroom. All I can think to do is arrive early this week and pray over each desk and each student who will sit there. I need the Lord to show up in my classroom this week.

In other news: I have created a Notewriting Hall of Shame in the teacher's coffee room. So far we have 5 notes hanging up (out of reach of students' eyes of course) and I anticipate there will be many more. Like the multi-hued break up letter from my last post. That one's going front and center. Keeping notes is valuable for several reasons: to inject a little humor into our daily lives, to show us how students actually communicate with one another, to remind me about what communication skills we should tackle in reading class, etc. (I mean, if somebody has to read a break up letter from their middle school love, they should at LEAST be able to get through it quickly instead of painfully trying to decipher the writing!) Pictures soon!