Over the hump

The school year is just about half over.

I gave four of my five midterms last week - results were mixed, but pretty accurate based on what I perceive to be my students' effort and abilities.

Now we're on the downslope. I have a student teacher starting on Monday, and that should be interesting. He is not a straight out of college guy - has spent some time teaching in private school in the South and currently works at a local branch of our state's major university. He realizes that if he wants to make any money at all in this field, he needs to be certified for public school. So I hope I don't mess him up TOO much!

It will be nice to be able to pull my kids out of the classroom to work with them while he's teaching the rest of them. Also, I will have time to look at papers.

Also, if I'm sick, I'll be a lot less reluctant to call in and stay home!

Hey - how about ONE snow day? Maybe on a Wednesday?

Just asking,

Back to School

It wasn't easy, but we started back up Tuesday. I really, really wish our school was on the same kind of schedule as colleges: finishing one semester with midterms before Christmas break, then starting a new one after a nice break of two or three weeks. I'd really be willing to start in the middle of August to accomplish this.

Just finished discussing "A Doll's House" by Ibsen with my AP class. Such an interesting premise - a woman who does what she believes to be the right thing to save her husband's life (and face), just to be treated like a plaything. When everything comes to a head, she realizes she is drowning and has to leave to save her own life. It was outrageous in the late 1800s - even today the idea of a woman leaving her children gives us pause.

Tomorrow we start "J.B." - a play in verse by Archibald MacLeish based on the Book of Job. I asked the students to do a little bit of web search to see what they might find about it. We'll see.

Have you ever read "All Quiet on the Western Front"? So amazing. Such a universal story. I didn't expect to like it so much. Every leader in the world should be forced to read it before being sworn into office. It wasn't until I went to England and Ireland that I realized what a terrible war World War I was. My students seem to like it (as much as they like anything that requires reading).

In 12 school days we'll be halfway done the school year. Midterms two weeks from tomorrow.