Day Fifty-eight: Ask and ye shall receive

Sometimes our efforts to teach our students appropriate vocabulary should stop before it starts. The principal had the artificial Christmas tree brought to our class and a few students tried to put some lights on it. I realized that the second strand was on the tree backwards because the plug end wasn't at the bottom. We had unwrapped the bottom strand when I picked the ends up, demonstrated, and said, "Make sure you plug the male end into the female end...yes that is what it's called." Oh the embarrassment.

First two classes were very quiet today. Less than five students per class. A few extra came by 2nd period to talk about Christmas party planning. Then 3rd was crazy. The class is now my largest. I know, most teachers would love to have a class with only 15 students...let me remind you that you kicked these 15 students out of your class. A few students thought I was picking on them for not working while letting others get away with it. They didn't seem to recognize that since the last time I checked on them, I had said the same thing at every table I stopped at. They are so funny. In the midst of all of this one of my students came up and told me an idea she had for her next project. It was so cool to see her so excited about what she was going to make, to see the wheels in her head turn and then click into place.

In 4th the students were writing down a key moment from each scene. It's not a math class, so there are a lot of answers that could be correct. I talked to them about taking on the role of a director, and how you get to decide what is most important to communicate...you just had to be able to defend your choice. So a student would tell me he was done, bring me his paper, and I would choose a scene and ask why he chose that line. I know the play pretty well, so it was pretty easy to spot the totally random sentences. I then said, go back, read the scene, come back, and tell me why it is important. Then he'd change something, but I'd see the same line still there, ask the same question, and get the same response. What a relief when he finally could answer the question and make connections with what he read. More than just regurgitating information.

Last night and today I got some very good news, thanks to some tremendous generosity. There is a fairly well known comedian that has done a few specials on Comedy Central who will be doing a show here in a few months. I got this crazy idea in my head about seeing if I could get a few tickets donated as a reward for my students. So I contacted his publicist. What's the worst that could happen? He'd say no? Last night I opened my email to find out that he was donating 4 tickets to us. How cool is that? When I told my students, they were so excited and are already asking what they need to do to get the tickets. I told them I'd let them know how it would work by Friday. Any suggestions????? P.S. I think I was able to get a few tickets for my students to see The Nutcracker as well.