The Most Awesome Day

When I told my greatest-most-supportive-makes-my-life-so-abundant friend Leah about The Most Awesome Day that I had today, she commanded me to write it down. To remember on the Not Most Awesome Days. Of which we all know there will be plenty.

So here are some things that made today The Most Awesome:

- I spent 30 minutes at Starbucks reading the end of the book of John before school.

- I remembered to go to the ATM to get money for our teacher helping-each-other-out fund (group fund to buy wedding presents and baby gifts and get well flowers, etc) so I could stop feeling guilty when the secretary made the announcement about it every day.

- I was, for the first time ever, totally prepared for the day almost 15 minutes before school started. Meaning I just wandered around saying good morning to people for a while and then actually felt CHEERFUL when my kids came in.

- My first period rocked their quiz and then we had time for some discussion about September 11, which they eagerly participated in. They figured out based on me telling them that I was in 7th grade when it happened that I am 23 (heh, little do they know that I am only 22) yet they did not make a big deal out of this at all.

- My girls worked in partners for the first time this year and did an AMAZING job and completed some really challenging work. I managed to cold call every single girl in both classes and everyone seemed with it and understanding what we were doing.

- A kid showed up for lunch detention when I didn't even give him lunch detention! Maybe this makes me a terrible person but he was pretty bad in my class yesterday so I didn't correct his mistake. He set out all of my textbooks for me so I was able to relax during lunch instead of hustling around to get stuff done.

- I made awesome colored coded seating charts so I finally don't have to search for random, hard-to-read scraps of paper when I'm taking attendance.

- I actually PLANNED during PLANNING period for the first. time. all. year.

- My principal has a broken hand and may or may not still be taking some kind of pain killing drugs, because he has been way more chill and relaxed and even weirder than he normally is... so much so that when he asked me why I hadn't hung up my calculator storage pocket thing, I told him that I needed nails, and he went out to the store and bought some nails and wandered in during the middle of 3rd period and hammered it in himself. With a broken hand. ??? I really appreciate the (usually unintentional) humor he brings to our days.

- The hallway after exploratory (PE, etc.) time is straight up CRAZY normally. Today it finally dawned on me to use our school-wide quiet signal, which is a fist in the air. All the kids are supposed to do it too, while being quiet. I stepped up in front of my 7th period boys lined up in the hallway and thrust my fist into the air like I had all the power and authority in the world. AND THEY STOPPED TALKING. You can not even imagine how miraculous this is. I told them "When you come in, sit down silently and do you bell work without talking." And they did!! Once again, truly miraculous.

- I totally bluffed both of my boys' classes about giving them a grade on their bell work and so every single kid except 3 did their bell work. Amazing.

- I had planned an engaging, fast-paced, semi-fun lesson for the boys and they ate it up with a spoon and for the first time EVER every single boy was awake, engaged, and voluntarily participating in class. I'm talking, the kid who sleeps through every class was raising his hand; the kid who usually glares daggers at me when I call on him was waving his hand in the air; and my biggest trouble maker raised his hand to clarify whether a certain point on the number line should be made with a closed circle or an open circle. Who were those boys?! I don't know but I LOVED them.

- My 8th period has to stay after school every single day because I make them stay for as many minutes as they talk during the announcements. Today they were finishing their independent practice when the announcements came on, and not only did no one talk, NO ONE MOVED when the principal dismissed them over the intercom-- because they were doing math. I had to kick the last 4 kids out because they wanted to finish so badly.

- My honors class started scientific notation after lunch and there were excited exclamations of "this is so easy!!" the whole time, so much so that they CHEERED when I assigned scientific notation homework. On a Friday. Kylan, who may be the coolest guy in the 8th grade, cheered with 125% seriousness that he loves homework.

- I am halfway through reading The Hunger Games to my honors kids who stay for enrichment (kids who don't have band have academic enrichment) and they are loving it. One of the too-cool-for-school cheerleaders today whined when I stopped reading and begged me to keep going because she "needed" to know what was going to happen.

And this is the kicker.... sorry this blog is already long, and this story is long, but it is so worth telling.

I have a student in my homeroom/honors/enrichment class (meaning I spend A LOT of time with him every day... probably about 2.5 hours total) who has been a big struggle this year. He has been the rudest, most disrespectful child I've ever met at times. He told me to my face one day that "I don't have to respect you because you're not my momma." He also threw his binder across my classroom in anger one time and walked away from my classroom and down the stairs while I was talking to him and definitely without permission.

I tried the heart-to-heart. I tried detention. I tried conference with mom. Nothing worked, and in fact everything seemed to increase his hatred for me. He would constantly make sarcastic and extremely rude comments under-his-breath-but-still-out-loud during class, refuse to stand up during the pledge of allegiance, refuse to take notes, and throw his pencil down and complain about his seat or about how I was racist and hated him because he is Hispanic. (Uh yes and I hate all other 173 Hispanic students I teach as well. Not.)

ANYWAY. Yesterday Melvin told me he needed to talk to me after lunch. He didn't seem upset and I thought he was being goofy so I kind of blew him off. Then he suddenly stepped out of line in the hallway with his fists clenched and starting walking the other direction down the hall. I put my hand on his shoulder and asked him where he was going and he replied, "To beat up that n***er." I had no idea what he was talking about but he was clearly TICKED so I told him to go sit down and we would talk once the rest of the class got started working.

He tried to get out of his seat twice to go to another room where this kid was that he wanted to hit. The second time I had to essentially head lock him to keep him from leaving the room. Rules be darned but I am not going to let one of my kids walk out of my room to go start a fight and get himself suspended. Luckily he was pretty responsive to my efforts and just sat back down both times.

Finally I got him in the hallway to talk and he told me that Zach had spit in his face after lunch after some verbal sparring ("checking") between the two of them. Melvin admitted to pushing Zach after he was pushed first but says he did nothing after being spit on because there was a teacher nearby. I tried to calm Melvin down by talking to him about how he would be the one to get suspended if he went and hit Zach, and about how the stuff Zach was saying was clearly stupid and pointless anyway, etc, and finally I ended up walking him down to the guidance counselor to sit and cool off.

To make the rest of the long story short, I got another teacher involved, we talked to Zach (who admitted the spitting), talked to admin, and ended up writing referrals for both Melvin and Zach. I was adamant however, that especially considering Melvin's temper it was a HUGE HUGE HUGE deal that he had NOT hauled off and whallopped this kid. I went and found our AP later in the day and emphasized this. She was surprised that I was vouching for Melvin, considering that I had sent him to her office only the day before for massive disrespect and backtalk.

Today Melvin was called to the office during The Hunger Games (sad, because he loves the book), and I found out later that he was given two days of ISS while Zach was suspended for three days. The other teacher involved told me that she had made it very clear to Melvin that it was me, Ms. Svoboda, who vouched for him and changed the AP's mind when she wanted to suspend him.

I wasn't really sure Melvin would believe her, since he told her yesterday that he thinks I hate him and am out to get him.

Melvin walked by me in the hall this afternoon after PE, and without really looking at me, but speaking loudly and clearly, said, "Thank you, Ms. Svoboda." He walked away without saying anything else but I knew exactly what he was talking about.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!