I am among the living

I've just been a little pre-occupied lately, with life and all that jazz...Anyways, here I am. I've heard the complaints (or read, that is) how much of a slacker I've become in the blogging world (you know who you are! you may not have said those exact words, but it was implied), so I am trying to make amends.

Teaching 7th and 8th graders that, yes, Language Arts is important to your life no matter what profession you want in life (even if it's a "would you like fries with that?" job, since you have to at least be able to read the menu and read tickets) is hard work. It exhausts me sometimes. Not to mention dealing with the attitudes and general apathy towards learning. And it doesn't help that the school gave me an unfair disadvantage with my class make up. Case in point.

Here's some food for thought, and you can agree or disagree, but here it is:
I think smaller class sizes makes a difference. I have 19 kids in my 3/4 period class, and they are by far my most well behaved. They work harder, stay on task longer and tend to score higher on tests. My other group of 8th graders totals 28 and there's such a difference. It feels like I have kids that get lost in the shuffle and don't get the attention they need. My biggest class are 7th graders, but I don't think it's fair to compare them to 8th graders. I swear sometimes they are a totally different species. Something drastic happens that summer between 7th and 8th grade. Whatever it is, it's a little scary.

My other point: when a class is dominated by little goof-off boys, trouble brews faster and stronger. My rowdiest class (by miles and miles) is my 7/8 period group. You wanna know the figures? 22 boys and 6 girls. Yeah, that's just not right. In previous experience, I would have said that it works out better when there are less girls (less eye rolling and whiny voices), but I have been proven wrong with the 8th graders (I tell ya, 7th and 8th graders are sometimes like night and day). My girls are the calming force. They just want a quiet class and they want to get their work done. My boys (aside from maybe 2 or 3) are goofballs that think everything they say and their friends say is downright hilarious. And they have smart mouths. And they want to say everything they're thinking (think: a 1st grader wanting to talk about his dog and his neighbor's rabbits and his dad's truck, but with hormones and more random information stored away in a 13 year old's head). It's annoying. Granted, they say something that is actually halfway funny at times, but then I'm giving them leverage when I laugh. I try to keep that to a minimum. It just proves my point that a class full of 8th grade boys is harder to handle than a class full of 8th grade girls.

And I hate that they have banned sugar from the schools. I mean, I don't hate it completely. I'm glad they can't get a a Twinkie and Coke in the lunchroom and call it a meal, but not having the ability to bribe with candy is excrutiating. There have been times in my past teaching experiences that I could have asked the kids to jump through flaming hoops like circus dogs and they would have done it, had there been a Jolly Rancher dangling in their view. Now, I can't use candy during review games or as an incentive for the quiet kids or to give them when I get a good report from a sub (I'm gonna be out on Wednesday for my dad's surgery and I sure wish I could tempt the kids with a sugary treat). It's just not fair.

And I'm off my soapbox. Hope this blog fills a special place in your heart until I find the time to write again. There's not a lot of downtime these days, with my homelife (involving a child that I'm convinced is rushing into his "Terrible Two's" early) and my worklife (involving lots of children that are quite settled in to their "Terrible Teens"). So, live with it.