Good days Ahead

Back to good times.... for now.

Although my life is chaos right now, I must admit that the teaching thing is going pretty well for the time being. Corey Booker, Newark's mayor, is coming into our school next week to be our "Principal for a Day", so we have been having daily visits from our principal, just for good measure. So far, we have had nothing but compliments. My students have been working cooperatively with one another, responding to their behavior mods, and overall following classroom rules and procedures. This is something that we have only perfected in the morning however, and we continue to show out the bad behaviors in the afternoon, after lunch (which incidentally is when the mayor will be in the school), but I think that we have made some great strides since the break. Honestly, none of this has anything to do with the mayor coming to our school, but it just happens to correspond in such a way that makes it so that the principal is even getting the chance to observe "the bad kids" behaving positively.

Don't get me wrong... we still have our issues, and I am fairly certain that this thing we have going on right now won't last through the hot weather we have coming soon, but for now it is something that we all need.

Spring Break is Over...

My kids were angels on Monday and Tuesday, and then today things flipped back again. I was hoping that the bliss of a new start after the break would help us to reconnect as a class, and Mon and Tues were promising... but today was 5 steps backwards.

We're back to threats again. One of my new students assured us all that he is going to "bring something in tomorrow to take care of all you all!" I am actually very nervous about it, and the administration did next to nothing... they're going to "check" him before school tomorrow, but my only fear is that after school might be too late. I can only immagine the things that are going through his heas to make it seem okay to do this sort of thing.

He saw a classmate with a switch blade in class, and then didn't see ramifications, because that stdent is now being home schooled, menaing that the only time my students see him anymore is when he's outside playing with his friends. Then there is the looming rumor in my room that Jerry sometimes carries a knife to school "just in case." I don't know if this is true or not, but to an extent, it doesn't matter, for the other students in the class it IS true. Then, ofcourse, there's TV, the community, and the news. I don't doubt that this student is already involved with gangs. He throws up signs left and right, talks "street" and has tremendous pride in repeating the word "bloods" whenever he's feeling perturbed. He's 9 years old. Then most recently there's the killings in Virginia. My kids heard about this, and that killer is getting so much media coverage he is like a legend already, and when my kids see that, all they can do is long for that sort of attention.

I also don't want to think about this anymore right now. I'm jst going to cross my fingers and trust that everything is going to be okay forever and ever. Anyone have any positive thoughts for me and my kids?