Alright, just got past a 3-day weekend (super-needed) in which I 'forgot' about school for a whole 48 hours. I immediately regretted that decision this morning when I walked into my classroom at 7am and realized that I needed to 1. Create a lab for my Biology I class 2. File everything from last week 3. Laminate and cut out an activity on Cellular Respiration for Biology II and 4. Enter grades from the last Friday. Oops. Oh well, I got 1 and 3 done, so I was at least on track to teach today.
So... what have we missed? Ah, yes. Last Wednesday we had our first gang-related incident involving about half of my 6th period class, most of whom have not attended since, despite nearly perfect attendance by some up to that point. Not a fight, just some strong words I guess. Regardless, disappointing at best.
After that, tension was palpable on the campus. Many students enrolled to escape that type of crap, and were pretty shaken that they were right back in the thick of it. From what I've heard it is pretty difficult to escape. There are 7 confirmed gangs between Alameda and Highway 285, which is approximately 5 miles on Federal Blvd. Guess who lies in the middle? The school. I guess since Colorado has 110 street gangs, and most of them have members in Denver this should maybe not be too surprising, and yet it is. I don't really know 100% how I feel about gangs. I guess some of it is social, and many of the students may not have a real choice as to whether or not to join. But seriously, at school? Do you want to destroy all of the chances that you're given? Jeez.
Beyond the whole gang unveiling, which was probably inevitable, we had our first intervention Friday. Essentially, this is an incentive day meant to 'punish' students who do not attend regularly and get those who need extra help and those that have missed class caught up on things they have met. Everybody else gets the day off. It went pretty well. I thought it would be a nice 'break' but it ended up being a fairly difficult day as I was dealing with many of the students that have behavioral/attendance problems. Additionally, because we have open enrollment, I was also getting some students caught up that had only started a few days before. Turns out 2 weeks is a lot of class to miss. Should be interesting catching up the students who have missed 4 next time...
Seriously, this school is, in theory, pretty cake. First off, you are graded on competencies that essentially require you to attend class and exert some small amount of effort to pass and THEN, IF you miss class, we have days built in for you to make up what you miss. How could you fail, you might ask? Don't worry, some of them are managing to. So many of them have repeatedly failed that it is almost as if they are afraid to try. They would rather ditch/give attitude/do nothing than risk attempting something and not succeeding. This is inane to me. I try to give it 110%. At least then, if I fail, I know that I've given it my best shot. I guess I will have to try and impart that to them. Wish me luck.
Today was another trying day. My last two periods of the day have been disrespecting big-time. They come in late, mess around, and give me attitude. I finally broke down during the last period and had a 10 minute 'serious talk' with them about respect. I let them know that if they are not interested in 'acting like adults' (which they are all convinced they 100% are) that I was not interested in working my ass off to make the class worthwhile for them. I let them know that if they would rather sit and read relevant sections of text from the book and take a quiz each day instead of completing activities that I spend hours designing it would actually make my life significantly easier. They seemed to get it and behavior improved for the rest of the period. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.
I wish I had time to get this stuff out more often so my posts weren't 5-paragraph essay length. Ah well, I know those with office jobs have time to read this type of thing... I'm still not sure I don't miss those days :).
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