First Day of School

So I just finished the first day of school and I need to do a little brain dump, so I am going to write down all of my thoughts about the day here, since I need to do something with this blog.

First period was a hot ass mess. The principal had all the kids roll into the auditorium and just sit there instead of planning any speech or something for them. It took her until the end of the period til she realized that they should hook up the mics and tell the kids to go to class, and then til fifteen minutes into the next class before she got them quiet and got them out of the class. I knew that was going to happen. What I didn't expect was that the kids schedules would have been done with new format that none of the students could understand. They all had a lot of trouble figuring out what class they were supposed to be in. Because of this we spent a good 10 more minutes in the 10th grade hallway figuring out where they were supposed to be. Then the rest of the 2nd period I spent explaining to students how to figure out their schedule and having them copy their schedules onto some bootleg ass piece of paper that they can actually understand.

Third period was team taught, went real smooth. There were some over talkative girls which seemed to be saying "I'm nervous in the classroom" So I am going to have to be real patient with the math so that they can all get a clear idea of what they had to do. Oh, and my handwriting was trash.

Had a brief prep in which I realized A) I'm tired. B) that last activity went too fast. and C) I'm hungry. Didn't really know how I was going to adjust any of those before the next class so I just ran right into it. They were really TALKATIVE. This time it was a boy who had a lot say, same story I imagine, nervous about being in a class and about being unsuccessful. When we did the activity about the seating charts (arrange yourselves silently by birth date) the class straight revolted. And one kid in particular was taking real issue with everything that I was trying to say in response. After class the social worker pulled me aside and said that this kid was one of the worst in the school last year, and that he has a personal vendetta against me from some basketball game I didn't let him play in 3 years ago, and he is in my advisory.

Advisory came and I, as I always have, was completely unprepared. despite my having, what I think, is the most attractive room of any room that I have worked in, and the cleanest. I completely forgot to create any kind of advisory plan. As we sat in akward silence I wondered if I have a secret vendetta against a class with no explicit content. Then I thought this might be an opportunity to really reach students. Then I realized that the kid pointed out to me was going to cut all period, and I started up a game of two truths and a lie. Now its prep.