The First Official Day of the End of the Year

Today was the first official day of the end of the year, at least that's what I call it. At my school we started finals today. Finals are for 3 days. The best thing about finals? We get out of school at 12:19 all three days! Sure, I think teachers are "supposed" to work until 3:15, but based on the number of cars leaving at the ringing of the bell, I'd say that wasn't the case.

I assigned a final. A FEW (literally, I asked and spoke with all classes and it truly is a few) of the students began their preparations for the final, which was supposed to be a speech. After seeing how far behind the students were, considering the fact that I missed work Monday and Tuesday because I needed to go visit my sick mom, and after calculating how much the final would truly affect my student's grades; I decided to make it an "optional" final for the student's whose grades, because they are borderline, could be raised. I'm actually happy with this decision. It taught me a lesson on how to create, develop, and calculate a final; and it taught the student's a lesson about doing something for nothing.

Some of my students were upset at first when I cancelled the final. They had put in time, thought and work into preparing. I listened to what they had to say, and then I told them, "Let's discuss something. In life, we don't always have to get something for everything we do. Whether it's for ourselves or for others, sometimes it's a gift to simply DO without expecting anything in return". I then asked the class, "Ok, if you learned something about yourself, your values, and how you define success (this was the speech topic), raise your hand". Of course all the students who had done any amount of preparation raised their hands. We then talked about what they learned and if doing what they did still had value even if it wasn't for a grade. All in all it was a great talk and I think, at least for a handful, the message got through and was appreciated. I know for a fact, for many of the kids, this was the first time they even thought about success and what it truly means to have success in life. I'm proud to say, very few chose money and material things as successful traits. :)

And so...today was the first day of finals. Today finals were for 1st and 4th periods. I don't have a first period so the whole first half of my morning was spent in my room. I took down old student work, hung up a new word wall, created a section with bright colors for California Standards to be posted. I made a couple of signs for the room (Current Grades, Great Work, "Expand your world through reading"--I put that by my world map).

Half way through first period two of my students came in because they were done with their finals and were bored. So they offered to help me. There is a cupboard in my room that was filled with tossed and thrown books. I wanted to straighten it up so I could make myself a small space to store boxes and stuff. Because we are a year round school we share classrooms. 3 teachers per two rooms. They assign one teacher from each track into those rooms, this way, there is always one teacher off track. My room however, has been used inconsistently by random teachers so the cupboards are filled and there are 5 file cabinets belonging to different teachers in the room. Kind of annoying really. I think teachers should bring their stuff with them as they go from room to room; unless they are RIGHT next door like I am. Our rooms even have a connecting door so it makes sense we'd all share. Anyway...the cupboard was cleaned out and I was very grateful to the girl's who helped.

After the 3 of us cleaned that, I went through a box of lesson plans and such that I had from when I was student teaching and from my first 6 months as a full fledged teacher. I put stuff in file folders and got a bit organized. That's always a great feeling! It's really strange getting my head around a new school year already. But, I figure I have the time and I need to freshen the room up so I feel refreshed and my new students don't have a teacher who is feeling the two month burn.

What is the two month burn? In a year round school in Los Angeles, we work 4 months, then get 2 months off. 2 months into the 4, we start to feel it. It sounds silly, but it happens. It's that halfway mark. And, since it's the end of the year, and we actually have most of our students for a full calendar year; I have had most of the same kids since last July 5th, I think all students and teachers are sick of eachother and ready for a change. :)

By the end of the day I had not only cleaned, organized, made my walls pretty, but I finished final grades for 3 classes. The other two I'll do tomorrow because some kids tomorrow will be doing the speeches. I have to say I LOVE web-based grading. It makes life so damn easy.

Oh, and an update on the student who emailed me that rude email, I spoke with the dean this morning and his parents were coming in for a conference with the dean today. JUSTICE PREVAILS...or we shall see.