Eighth graders have split personalities

Seriously. It's one of the things I haven't had to deal with before. Fifth graders tend to either love you or hate you. They don't flip back and forth every day. Or every minute. 8th graders are much more fickle creatures. Of course there are some that love you, some that hate you, some that are indifferent. But I've noticed that things are much more definitive with this age group. One of my more difficult children was talking to me about how she wanted me to come watch her run track one minute, and then I had to send her out of the room for being disruptive, literally about two minutes later. And then she came back and was fine again. My difficult class was good and mostly on task today. And another class was making me nuts.

This has been an interesting week in that the rest of my department seems to be having a melt-down. Last week was my week to be upset, although I will say that was really just the one day. This week, there are people in my department so upset about student behavior that they are talking about quitting. I'm not sure what's going on, but it seems bad.

I don't by any means have junior high behavior figured out. I know it works a little differently than with the 5th graders I've been teaching. I hope that if I stick around, it will get easier. I know the one thing I have to learn this year is not to take it personally.

The one good thing I'm learning this week is that it's not just me. I'm not struggling just because I'm new. Everyone seems to be having a hard time.

interesting developments

So after my nightmare day last week, I mentioned that one of my students is getting moved out of my room because of how many difficult kids I have. This afternoon, at the start of 8th period, my vice principal called and said, guess what, it's Christmas. What other student do you want removed? We couldn't have the conversation right then because the name of the student I would have said was sitting in the room, plus I wanted to find out what the deal was.

The woman across the hall, the one who periodically shouts things like "I'm your teacher, you have to respect me" requested that one of her kids be removed, and that child is coming to me. My vice principal said to me that this kid is not really a behavior problem, that it's more of a personality conflict. Essentially, the other teacher yells at her kids (I can hear this across the hall) and has a tendency to escalate problems rather than diffuse them. Not that I am always good at diffusing problems, but my fault tends to be letting problems go on too long, as opposed to yelling too much.

So whenever this girl gets back from suspension, she comes to me. I told Pat I'd choose someone to send to the other teacher by the end of this week. I'm not sure what I think of that, but I know this- the teacher across the hall is going to want to kill me if I give her one of my difficult kids. And that's what Pat said-- basically that he warned her she was not going to want one of my kids, but she was going to get one if she insisted on getting rid of this other kid.

Anyway. We'll see how this goes.

This week

I'm excited that this week I get to start a novel with two of my classes. I'm also a little perplexed about how to deal with a few things. I'm a big Agatha Christie fan. I've read most of her books. We are reading And then There Were None. I love mysteries, love Agatha Christie but this is a hard one to teach to my class, not just because of the things that don't translate that well with age, but because of the overtly racist nature of the book. I agree with teachers who say that we don't want to shy away from that part of history, but it will take some explaining. Besides the fact that the books original title is "Ten Little Niggers", there's also derogatory comments about Jewish people and the phrase "a nigger in the woodpile" appears a couple of times. I also think it would be easier if there were more black students in my class, but there are only a few, which makes it more awkward. I'm planning on doing a whole discussion on racism before we start.

I'm also being evaluated on Tuesday. Every one has told me not to stress about the evaluation, that it's no big deal. But in my other schools it has been a big deal. I think my plan for the evaluation is good, so hopefully it will go well. I did plan the evaluation for my birthday, which may not have been the best idea, but it made sense at the time. Oh well, the most stressful part of the week will be over Tuesday at 9:10.

a not so fun week

So this week has been tough for several reasons, but I'm growing less and less pleased with the way my last period is going. They just are disrespectful to me and mean to each other. And of course I'm feeling like a failure because I can't find a way to get them to happily do their work. Pretty much everyone will do some semblance of what I ask in the classroom, except for being quiet or polite. But they do their work. However, they don't study for tests, about half of them do their homework. It's been frustrating me for a while how apathetic some of them are. There is one girl in this room who never speaks. And then I have the 3 really badly behaved kids in this room. One of them is about to be removed from my room.

For me, this came to a head on Wednesday and I just felt really defeated at the end of the day. I had 7 periods where I felt like everything went great, but I ended the day with this group of students.

I closed my door, cried for a few minutes and then decided to go to the Volleyball game where some of my girls were playing. Where I saw my principal. Who proceeded to walk by me 4 or 5 times. Without speaking to me. I was the only teacher there, besides the coaches, and he didn't speak to me. This was only slightly surprising because he doesn't speak to me on a daily basis, but I always assume he's busy. There was just no excuse for it at the game. I went home not feeling great about my choice to work at Actis, move to Bakersfield, all of that.

Today was a better day for sure. I talked to one of the members of my department, and she and the other teachers bought me flowers and were totally supportive. My vice- principal is totally cool and is going to move one of my problem kids out of my class. It's not my favorite solution, but it may be what I need for right now. I sent my most disruptive kid out of the class today to another teacher's room and he was so awful that she immediately sent him to the office. That amused me. She told me that it wasn't me, and that she couldn't believe I had put up with him for as long as I had. Interesting...

All in all, not a great week, but I have to remember the other kids who are doing great and seem to be learning.