Still beating myself up.

My 7th period has been a challenge lately. It all started when I had a sub a couple weeks ago and all hell broke loose in my classroom. (I don't mean to say that, but there really is no other description that truly fits the scenario.) From what I understand, one kid was going around punching other kids and when one of them retaliated by kicking him back, the punching kid went at him with a stapler.
Now. When I say punching and kicking and possible freaky stapling, it wasn't leaving bruises or anything, but it was horseplay that was completely inappropriate for school (or anywhere if you ask me). Apparently the sub was 19 years old and looked about 12, so her attempts to get the misbehaving boys to calm down were futile. Under some sort of divine inspiration, a math teacher came into my classroom to give me something and saw the complete anarchy and sent three boys to to the principal's office.

Yeah...

Ever since then, many of the students have been quite vocal in their disdain for a particular student or two.
This breaks my heart because I know this student would thrive under positive peer attention or feedback, but due to his behavior, he is now the enemy of the class. This doesn't help the general atmosphere of the class because he isn't a particularly quiet child and will defend himself to the death if need be.
Basically, the negative comments and energy in that class are somewhat terrifying. Therefore, I have been racking my brain for interventions to help the students in this particular period.
After talking to a teacher across the hall, I decided to put tally marks on the board and students have the chance to earn a party. For every negative comment a tally mark gets erased. At the end of the period we will count up the tally marks and when they reach a certain number, they will get a party.
I introduced this intervention today and one student lost all of the points for the class. Yikes. Something must be done!
I'll have to let you know what I decide to do about that.

I introduced this party idea about 15 minutes into the period. So, there were quite a few negative comments being thrown around before this. Finally I told a student that was talking out quite frequently that if he talked again without raising his hand and receiving permission, he would go to ISS (in school suspension). Guess what happened though. He tested my threat and I didn't follow through. It gets worse though. One student raised her hand and said, "Not to be negative, but didn't you say that if he talked again he would have to go to ISS?" I was a little in shock about that and all I could say was, "Yes I did." And that was it! I didn't do anything about it.
The rest of the period wasn't too bad, even though we lost all of the points.

After school ended, I was so distraught over my inability to follow through with a consequence, that I couldn't get any work done and I just went home and watched TV for about an hour and a half. I finally dragged myself off the couch and went to the gym and then ran to the grocery store afterwards. I was still feeling pretty bad about things though.

Are you feeling my pain? Maybe you're laughing. Or maybe you're saying, "AUDRYN. Follow through girl! You need to grow a spine!" Don't worry though - I have a possible remedy.
I confessed my pathetic inability to follow through on consequences to my roommate, a former middle school English teacher, and she came up with a solution!
She said that because I didn't say when I would send the kid to ISS, I can still follow through! She said maybe it's even better because there has been a time period for everyone to cool off and really think about what happened. So here's the plan: before 7th period tomorrow I will go tell this student that he is to go to ISS for 7th period because of his behavior the day before. He may complain, but all I have to say is that he knew what the expectation was and so he has to deal with the consequences.

:)

Maybe there's still hope for me. And for that student.

-Ms. Damron-

CMS Dance Recital

Centennial has ballroom dance classes as electives and I went to the recital tonight.

Can I just say that it was legit?! The kids did a fantastic job. It was really neat seeing some of my kids perform. There are some talented dancers in there. All I can say is don't stop dancing! Build that talent and see where you end up!

Instead of listening to the announcement or checking the calendar to see what events are going on, I talked to the teacher across the hall and she mentioned that she was going to the recital. I would have gone with her last night, but I had institute and I was in charge of the food. So I invited one of my roommates, RachelAnne and we went tonight.

It was actually much better than I would have though. It was slightly humorous to see some short young men who haven't quite hit their growth spurt dancing with girls a head taller then them. They'll grow into themselves. Hopefully. haha

I can't wait to go to school tomorrow and tell my students how much I enjoyed watching them! I'm glad I went. :)

-Ms. Damron-

Good-bye Miss Val

One of our Special Ed paras, Val, quit. Her last day was Wednesday (yesterday) and I just want to cry!
I can't get mad at her though because she quit so that she could stay home with her baby. Miss Val had a cute baby girl during the summer and the baby-sitter got another job. It was too crazy trying to find random baby-sitters here and there, so Miss Val quit to stay home and be a mom. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm happy for her, but I'm just plain depressed...and a little terrified to face my dear students alone. Hopefully they hire another para soon!

In honor of Miss Val leaving, I had my students make her thank-you/good-bye notes. We made them on Monday and Tuesday during block days. I gave the students these guidelines:

-include her name
-write 4-6 sentences
-thank her for something
-close it with sincerely, thank-you, whatever
-make it colorful and fun
-make it meaningful

The 4-6 sentences was a bit of a stretch, but at least it let them know that they had to actually write something.

After those instructions, I let them do what they wanted. I was so surprised with the clever ideas the kids came up with!
In my first period, one boy cut out a Christmas tree, another boy made his into a little laptop card and even drew the "Apple/Mac" computer logo on the front. Another boy included his phone number and offered his baby-sitting services. He told me it was his first self-promotion. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the only time she would need a baby-sitter would be during the same time he was in school...
My second period is going to miss her the most. There are a couple of 8th grade boys in there who gave her a hard time sometimes, but Val is so witty and funny that she won them over. Miss Val told me that after I told the students that she was leaving, he was super nice to her. She said "I should leave more often!" In this period, that same boy wrote a heartfelt note and said that he was probably going to fail all of his classes without her. He also told her that she shouldn't leave because he was more important than her baby. In her slightly sarcastic way, Miss Val said "Actually...my baby is more important than you." That cracked me up.
My 7th period was a bit...interesting. One boy was "overjoyed" that she was leaving and asked if he had to write a note. I said yes and although he proclaimed that he was going to write all sorts of things (like "good-bye forever - I won't miss you" or "I loved it when you sat in the corner and glared at me") he actually made a really cute note and put a lot of effort into it. He made a little purse with a bear sticking out of it and then he wrote little messages on hearts and put them in the purse! I thought it was fantastic! Another boy made a "frog purse." It had a little handle, which made it a purse, but it was in the shape of a frog head and when you opened it, the note was on the tongue! How cute is that?!

Here are some pictures. See if you can spot the letters I talked about:








Good-bye Miss Val - I will miss you!

-Ms. Damron-

Oh! And before I forget, on the last day she was there, Ms. Val gave me a sweet present. She gave me some fake yellow roses because she knows those are my favorite. She also framed a "Certificate of Awesomeness." It was so cute.

Tender moment

I love having volunteers come to my classroom. I frequently have BYU students who are going into education volunteer. One of the classes they have to take is about students with disabilities and they have to get a certain number of volunteer hours in a special ed classroom. So of course I let them come to my classroom. The more the merrier in my opinion.

Two girls came this morning from 8-10 and I was so grateful to have them there. So many students need one-on-one help in order to get anything done, so I am always grateful for people who help in my classroom.

Anyway, I asked one of the girls to help some students with math. Before I sent her over there I asked her if she was good at math and she said she didn't think she was great, but she could probably handle middle school math.
Before she left we talked for a couple of minutes and she just looked at me and said, "What you do is absolutely amazing." She then proceeded to tell me that she had never realized how much work and effort goes into helping these students. She made the observation that they don't finish assignments easily and they struggle to comprehend assignments without very specific instructions and thorough explanations of concepts. She said she got an A in Calculus in high school, but when it comes to breaking down concepts and explaining them to someone with a disability, it's HARD.

YES it is. I was just so happy that she made that observation. She will be a great teacher if she takes the time to help those students in her classroom who need a little extra help. If she recognizes how important it is to take the time to explain things (even if it's the third or fourth time) and really work with her students, then she will be a teacher who cares AND changes lives.

-Ms. Damron-

Complete blasphemy

During my 2nd period yesterday, one my students jumped up on the counter when I wasn't looking. When I turned around and asked what in the world he was doing, he said,

"I'm making a speech. Can't you tell who I am?"

And then he whispered,

"I'm Jesus."

There are not words to describe how stunned I was after that.

-Ms. Damron-

Cute drawing

So one of my 8th grade girls drew a picture of me on the white board today and I thought I'd share it with you. :)





You can see the clear similarities:
curly hair
square(ish) glasses
a fantastic figure (or lack of one!)

I hope you got a good smile out of it.

-Ms. Damron-

Small successes

I am so happy!!!

I figured out a way for my 8th grade students to study the vocab from their English classes and pass the tests with flying colors!

Remember my goals for Term 2? Well one of the things I changed was that instead of having the students in Mrs. Scott's English class do the Daily Language Review with the rest of the class, I have them pulled to a different table where one of the paraeducators studies with them. They make flash cards, practice the spelling, practice putting the words into sentences...and guess what?! They are passing their vocab tests!

Term 1 they never passed the vocab tests. In fact, the typical vocab test scores were 4/20, 2/20, 6/20 - you get the idea. Basically they were failing every test.

Once we started this new intervention though, the students are doing great! In fact, Mrs. Scott stopped by my 2nd period today to tell the two boys that one of them got a 100% and the other boy only missed one! I just about died from happiness. The boy who only missed one said, "Really?!"

It really is the little things in life that bring smiles. (I'm seriously freaking out I'm so happy!!!)

-Ms. Damron-