Busy
I feel like I've neglected my blog, and I want to give a quick update.
The first semester ends after this week. This doesn't effect me too much, except, I'll be teaching grade 9 health and career planning. And math 12 in about two and a half weeks (when my two- person math 11 class will become a three-person math 12 class).
I got evaluated last week. It went well. The class was a bit chaotic though. The day before, there was a fish farm forum in the school library that the kids attended. They got quite riled up about it, so I thought I could use that interest in my math class. We were study survey design, so I thought we could do an example with this. I planned it, and it turned out smooth as gold. So that went well. The surprises came at the beginning of class. The class was first thing in the morning. I ran into a new teacher that just got hired last week and he's a biologist and he was quite interested in the fish farm debate. I mentioned we were going to look at it from a survey design aspect. He seemed quite interested so I invited him to my class. Hey, what's one more person, right! Now, sometimes one kid is late. It's not always the same kid. So class starts and over half my class is not there! I was floored. They knew we were being observed. I laughed nervously, and then started the class. So the kids start showing up after about ten minutes ... and they all show us with no pencil. Grrr! I handled it well. And the observer said I did well in general. Phew! Only one more observation to go after spring break.
The power went out today. Fun, fun, fun. I freaked out because my stove beeped at me about 2 minutes after the power went out, and I get a little scared when I'm in the dark. Anyway, I got out the candles and lit them. All the time I was cursing myself that I procrastinated all day, and all the stuff I really needed to do, needed to be done on the computer. Anyway, I'm reading a script for my drama club (I started a drama club for the school) and the power comes on. So I go to blow out the candles. I blew really hard on them so that they'd totally extinguish so that the residual smoke wouldn't set the smoke alarm off. Well, I must of put my face too close to the candle because the next thing I know, I have wax all in my bangs, my forehead and my glasses. I was lucky to be wearing glasses. I went to the bathroom to get the wax off my face and my bangs were sticking straight up with wax on them. It was pretty funny. I wish I had taken a picture.
Sad news this weekend: one of the high school student's mom died from AIDS. I feel kinda bad. I don't teach the kid (but I will starting in two weeks), but all the teachers know him because he is quite mischievous. I can't imagine losing my mom. This affects me because my buddy, Andrew, feels like he foresaw it. He has a dream that he had big lice in his hair (I think because he just got dreads and his head is a bit itchy because he can only wash his hair once a week for the first little bit until the dreads become more dreadlocked) and one of the village elders told him that the dream means that someone close to him will die if he doesn't tell four people about his dream. He didn't think too much about it until he found out the news. The woman was his next door neighbour. I talked to Andrew about it and he's doing alright. He's a bit torn about not following the superstition. I tried to comfort him in saying that that is all it was and he certainly couldn't have prevented this death from happening. It will be a real interesting day at school tomorrow. I think my hugging muscle will get a good workout.
The first semester ends after this week. This doesn't effect me too much, except, I'll be teaching grade 9 health and career planning. And math 12 in about two and a half weeks (when my two- person math 11 class will become a three-person math 12 class).
I got evaluated last week. It went well. The class was a bit chaotic though. The day before, there was a fish farm forum in the school library that the kids attended. They got quite riled up about it, so I thought I could use that interest in my math class. We were study survey design, so I thought we could do an example with this. I planned it, and it turned out smooth as gold. So that went well. The surprises came at the beginning of class. The class was first thing in the morning. I ran into a new teacher that just got hired last week and he's a biologist and he was quite interested in the fish farm debate. I mentioned we were going to look at it from a survey design aspect. He seemed quite interested so I invited him to my class. Hey, what's one more person, right! Now, sometimes one kid is late. It's not always the same kid. So class starts and over half my class is not there! I was floored. They knew we were being observed. I laughed nervously, and then started the class. So the kids start showing up after about ten minutes ... and they all show us with no pencil. Grrr! I handled it well. And the observer said I did well in general. Phew! Only one more observation to go after spring break.
The power went out today. Fun, fun, fun. I freaked out because my stove beeped at me about 2 minutes after the power went out, and I get a little scared when I'm in the dark. Anyway, I got out the candles and lit them. All the time I was cursing myself that I procrastinated all day, and all the stuff I really needed to do, needed to be done on the computer. Anyway, I'm reading a script for my drama club (I started a drama club for the school) and the power comes on. So I go to blow out the candles. I blew really hard on them so that they'd totally extinguish so that the residual smoke wouldn't set the smoke alarm off. Well, I must of put my face too close to the candle because the next thing I know, I have wax all in my bangs, my forehead and my glasses. I was lucky to be wearing glasses. I went to the bathroom to get the wax off my face and my bangs were sticking straight up with wax on them. It was pretty funny. I wish I had taken a picture.
Sad news this weekend: one of the high school student's mom died from AIDS. I feel kinda bad. I don't teach the kid (but I will starting in two weeks), but all the teachers know him because he is quite mischievous. I can't imagine losing my mom. This affects me because my buddy, Andrew, feels like he foresaw it. He has a dream that he had big lice in his hair (I think because he just got dreads and his head is a bit itchy because he can only wash his hair once a week for the first little bit until the dreads become more dreadlocked) and one of the village elders told him that the dream means that someone close to him will die if he doesn't tell four people about his dream. He didn't think too much about it until he found out the news. The woman was his next door neighbour. I talked to Andrew about it and he's doing alright. He's a bit torn about not following the superstition. I tried to comfort him in saying that that is all it was and he certainly couldn't have prevented this death from happening. It will be a real interesting day at school tomorrow. I think my hugging muscle will get a good workout.
posted by Small Town Teacher @ 6:49 PM
2 Comments:
At January 21, 2007 10:09 PM,
Toccata said…
I too wish you had taken a picture. I don't think there can be too many pictures out there of wax covered bangs!
Poor kid. That is going to be tough. Sure hope the kid and Andrew will be ok.
At January 24, 2007 9:37 PM,
Toccata said…
I was wondering how things were at school this week. No doubt things were a little rough but hope the community is doing ok. How is your friend Andrew doing?
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