In the Lou

My kids are people. Sometimes they forget that. Sometimes their teachers forget that. Sometimes I forget that (I’m not perfect). However, I think the key to this teaching thing is remembering that. These kids are people. They need, want and hunger to be treated like people who have a value and are respected by others around them.

A confession

One of my first period students said the most amazing things to me this week. In light of the fact that it is startlingly clear that she will fail my class due to missing work not yet made up, she is working to improve her grade. During a brief moment when we were talking about this, she said “I’m not trying to make excuses for this, but I wanted to let you know…” (more…)

Today we had a fight. I’m not exactly sure why it started. It was in the hall and in the room next to mine at the beginning of seventh hour. The problem was that there weren’t any security guards around at the time.

I had to go in to try and diffuse the situation. Half the school was rushing to the commotion, which meant more side-fights were likely to start if something didn’t stop. (more…)

I think sugar coating all things in life gets a little old. Yes, it’s a great world when all things have something good to them, but I think we lose perspective if we’re not willing to admit the truth in some situations some times.

In case it’s not clear, I’m about to purge the some of depressing details from the past few weeks. If you’d prefer to keep the sweet view of things, don’t read on. (more…)

I promise to start writing again.

I think I’ve been partially avoiding writing so as not to have to face some the issues going on in life right now. I think I’ve also been in a lazy mood, excusing my absence from writing with prioritization of other things like catching up on TV shows. Very valid, I know.

Since I’m just stopping in, I’ll leave you with an interesting article to read from the newspaper. It’s about the school and students that I started with this year. (It’s good news.) Read on, read on. Unfortunately the pictures aren’t posted on the paper’s website.

It will be soon when you hear from me again, I promise.