3 More Days...

...till I get my first, and much-needed, road-trip out of Houston!

I've decided to take Friday off to give me more time in the Delta this weekend. It will give me some good time to chill out and not think about school - at least, not too much. I'm really excited about seeing Missy and Amanda and hopefully the Bulldogs, if I can get tickets.

Ever since the end of Institute, I felt like I started the year off in the "disallusionment" stage that so many TFA teachers reach around October. Everyone I know went home after training, except for me. I thought it would really give me a chance to settle into Houston, but all it really did was prevent me from taking a mental break that comes so easily with a change of location.

Needless to say, I've been waiting on this weekend for a while now.

--In other news, Taylor (my worst student who I've already sent to the AP) asked me yesterday if I'd go to his football game. He really wanted to play football this year, so his mother and I made him a deal: go a whole week with no misbehavior marks and you can play football; keep it up and you can stay on the team. Well, Taylor was an angel the other week, so his mother let him join the team. So far, he's kept up the good behavior, for the most part. There are still days when he pouts in his seat, refusing to do anything, but those are occuring less often than before.

I told Taylor that I wouldn't be making his game (which was last night) because it was too short notice. But, I told him that if he told me at least 2 days ahead-of-time and he completed all his work and participated in class, I'd love to come see him play football. I think that really made him feel loved. Today, I saw him while he was walking to another class and he came up to me and joyfully said, "Mr. Wilson!" and wrapped his arms around me. He caught me completely offguard, so I just smiled and said "Hey, Taylor."

--Today, our district Science Specialist made a school-visit. While my students were at electives, our school Science Specialist brought Dr. Ponder through my room. She showed him my Observation Binder as he walked around my room taking mental notes.

All this was after we had a morning-long 6th-grade Science training about Science Fair. We are the only school in the district that requires our 6th-graders to complete a Science Fair project and it really aggrevates me. My students are so far behind and we have to waste about 2 full weeks (that's 900 classroom hours!) to allow our students to work on Science Fair projects. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

We actually will be working on the projects until November 9th, but the last half of the projects involves more at-home work.

I've decided that my classes will each complete one class project, rather than 30 individual projects. There's just too much my kids need to learn this year for me to waste 900 hours of instruction on a 6-week art project!

Don't get me wrong, I think there are many valuable lessons that can come from Science Fair, but all the higher-level learning is completely lost on 6th-graders who have the attention span of only slightly-developed gnats. There's no way they will be able to process information about one subject (ie - the Scientific Method) that is spread over 6 weeks.

I really feel that the administration and district have the best intentions in implementing Science Fair in 6th grade. However, as a soldier on the front lines, I can testify that it's just not happening in the practical world of my classroom. I have a job to prepare these kids for middle school Science and Social Studies and if that means less art projects, then parents will just have to understand that learning does take place in classrooms lacking student art on the walls.

--With all that, I have to now write a mini-lesson plan so that I can introduce the Science Fair tomorrow.

3 more days!