Tuesday July 2nd.
Pretty typical Tuesday. Sharon teared up a little in France because she could not find one of her colored pencils. Found out that over the weekend (not sure if this or last) all of the France kids got together with their parents. Andy hit Fred in the back. This of course shocked all of the parents, and it shocked all of us teachers too. In class Andy and Fred seem to get along really well. Normally it is Andy and David that are physical. So we all have to keep a close watch on them now. Otherwise the parents may pull them. I know I have talked about Andys frustration, but I have not seem him get physical with a person. Normally it is just slapping the desk or shutting a book with force.
Denmark and Australia all went okay. I tried to implement the Citizenship stuff I learned at my training several weeks ago. It seemed to flow better, but bringing the kids to the seminar room ate up a lot of my time to teach the class. I wish all of the classes had computers with big screens. It would make life so much easier.
We took a test in my afternoon Denmark class (formerly Canada class... I may just keep calling them that). I caught 2 girls cheating and am making them retake the test tomorrow.
Korea classes debate was painful. It was Angels first time and she had a difficult time. Most of the students did... Though the closing arguments, Dylan actually was able to put together a decent string of thoughts for it.
I cam home and had to do my progress reports for my Greece class. Those are really not that fun to do. It also makes it tough because we are not supposed to rank or rate the kids poorly. Some of the kids that are below average... I have to call their work satisfactory or above. If kids do poorly, the parents get mad.
I know that almost all teachers face the problem of having students below average keeping the above average students down. It pains me so much to see. Some of this kids in my classes are so far behind, they just really hold most of the class back. There is nothing I can do about it. I'd like to imagine that if I were a parent I would be more concerned about my kids learning that about my pride. I would want to know my kid sucks at something, that way I can find something more appropriate for them... whether it be a tutor, different class, or different school.
After that, I watched a movie and drank a beer.
Wednesday July 3rd
Juliet had a little weep today. Not exactly sure what it was over.... but it came to pass really quickly. Juliet is so interesting. She normally has the weepy look on her face, as if she could weep any minute... but when she smiles she has one of the biggest and shining smiles I have seen. Her complete persona changes. If only she smiled more often. If you are having a tough day, her smile could lighten up even the hardest hearts. I am now a little concerned about Sally. She has been talking less and less. In class that is a good thing, but she now talks less outside of the class. she used to talk to anyone and everyone and now she seems super shy. I am hoping it is just because she lost her 2 front teeth and she doesn't like talking because she cannot pronounce words correctly.
We watched our Cartoon Network cartoon in Australia. We just got Adventure Time to show the kids too. Well I started, and the first episode that we have is Episode 1 of Season 2. An episode where a vampire goes around sucking souls. Scary. So I stopped that episode. I picked another one at random. It starts off showing the Ice King having a princess in a dungeon. So that one was stopped at the request of several students. I love adventure time... but I will not be showing it to my students any more. I'd show it to my older students, but not the Kindys.
Denmark class, the students always call me over to whisper in my ear. Normally it goes something like "Eric Teacher is Good" Or "Eric Teacher is very very very best!" Which I definitely enjoy hearing. I known I do not talk about Denmark class as much as my other classes. But it seems like most of the time I guess I am doing something right. Soo always wants to write on my hand and the kids often write me little notes on scraps of paper that say the same things they whisper. One funny thing that Soo does is draws me, and then draws Eric Teachers wife. She asks me several times a week if I have a girlfriend or am married. She always has a different name for my wife... The wife I had today, she drew a baby in her stomach... I laughed so much on the inside when I saw that.
In Canada class today we are writing an autobiography... So I printed up little cheat sheets. It cause more stress for me than if I had not done it.
Greece I tried acting different... but it did not work so well. I think part of it was that we got a new student. Now that I have my Canada class under control (or able to keep controlled and entertained) I will now find a way for my Greece class.
After school we GS marted it and ordered some really big pizzas from Pizza Heaven. Good pizza and decently priced. We all left incredibly full.
We did not stay at the GS for that long.
I came up stairs and put together a video of my Denmark class from speech (though the audio is really poor and I do not know if it will work). I also burned a music CD to listen to in my Korea Class as we do vocabulary.
Now I am off to bed.
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