4 Month Check-Up

BooBear is doing well. He is 50 percentile in weight and 85 percentile in height. 14 lbs 12.5 oz, 26.5 inches long. He got his vaccines, which naturally made him really tired. Instead of going to sleep at 3am, he went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 3am. At least for Werty's sake, he went back to sleep at 5:30am.

Cheating Epidemic

Urgh! The end of the term is upon us and students are getting ready to take my final for Government class. Meanwhile I am trying to get caught up on grading. A big thanks to Gloria for doing most of the grading for my ESL classes! Grading has been depressing lately. I have to add notations to students zero grade explaining that there will be no credit received due to the fact that the student copied off another student. I don't care who copied who. A second violation and you get an automatic F in the class. Says so in my disclosure. There was an assignment the week before break where TEN students out of 40 copied off each other. Same halfway completed misspelled answers. Sad thing is about 3 of those had already copied before. So far I haven't failed them, but maybe a letter home to the parents is in order. One girl is having a hard week with her little brother in the hospital and all. And I have her in three different periods, can you imagine the headache that can cause? Grrr. Then today I corrected an assignment for my other Government class that only about half the class did, even though I let them work on it in pairs. Four students, i.e. two groups, had the same half baked incomplete sentence answers. Good thing for them they are not repeat offenders. I am thinking that next semester I will have a parent, student, teacher contract already written so that they have to get a parent signature showing that a parent was notified of their first violation and the chance for an automatic failure. I think that would cover the legal requirements, so that I could fail them if they did it again. I have given my students a little slack because I was gone the first month of the year and all, so it took them a little longer to figure out what they can and cannot do. But cheating, along with all forms of dishonesty, is the WORST thing you can do and cannot be tolerated in my book. As a teacher I see this getting worse and worse like an epidemic. Students often don't think that they have done anything wrong - they have no concept that doing the work is supposed to help them actually learn something. What's the point in learning and understanding information in a world of googling? Are we going to see a dearth of intelligent conversation now that we are inundated with so much information, many of it non essential to our survival or salvation? Grrr.

Photographic Evidence

They're free! My toes are free! How I have missed you!


Proof of his latest toe sucking accomplishment! Om nom nom

Holding on to Daddy's hair.

Teenage Boys

I suggested to a failing student today that he complete one of the extra credit projects to bring up his grade. It's an easy 2 page research paper on a landmark supreme court case. I showed where the list of court cases were in the textbook that he could chose from. About 10 minutes later with an overly innocent smile on his face, "Teacher, I want to do this case. But I'm not sure exactly what it is saying here." So I read the textbook summary of the case. A case about "sex discrimination." I explain that the court ruled that you are not allowed to hire someone over another person based on their gender. In the case Reed v. Reed, they wanted a male to fill an administrator position instead of a female. I explained this to the student. His face fell. "Oh. Let me look again," he says as he takes the textbook back. "You don't want to do that case?" "No."

Can you guess why? In my mind I was smiling amusedly, but keeping my poker face. A case about sex discrimination...he was hoping to research some titillating sex scandal or sexual orientation case that he could joke about...but in this case the word "sex" referred to gender. Never mind teacher.

Cute Games We Play

Ddonn asked me the other day what cute thing BooBear was doing these days. Being able to spend more time with him in the morning during break allowed me to hone in on one of his daily games. He likes to play keep away with us whenever we are dressing or undressing him - unless he is upset and crying. The game goes like this - as soon as he realizes that you are trying to put on a sleeve, he will stuff his hand in his mouth and grin. When you have his arm half way down the sleeve, he will again stuff his hand and the fabric in his mouth and laugh. You let him win for a moment, then you resume the dressing process. Once you have his arm through the sleeve, he doesn't want that hand anymore, he wants to other one - the one you want to put in his other sleeve. And we repeat the ritual. Again, he doesn't want his hands now that he is dressed. You play along, and he is thrilled. Recognizing he is trying to play a game with us takes some of the frustration out of the fact that he is slowing down the process.

BooBear's succes for the day: he got his whole big toe in his mouth today during his bath. Good thing I had cleaned his feet first. He had been able to get his little toes in there before, and his sock, but FINALLY he got the big toe. He was pleased. Until he peed in the tub and accidentally shot himself in the eyes. Yeah. Poor kid scared himself. I laughed so loud I scared him too. Probably stung too. And he will probably be mortified someday if he ever learns that I shared this story with the world.

Learn Turkish

My Spanish speaking students asked my Turkish student the week before break how to say "I love you" in Turkish, and I am passing it on to you. Seni seviyorum. If you resolved to learn something new each day this year, there is your new thing for today. :D

Jane Eyre

On New Years Eve we just stayed at home with a sick baby. He got to try infant tylen0l for the first time. When we went out for Chinese food at Werty's favorite restaurant for his birthday a few days ago, I had mentioned to Rena that my sister had given me the new Jane Eyre dvd for Christmas (Thanks Sis!) , knowing that Jane Eyre is Rena's favorite story. Rena came over and watched all 3.5 hours of Jane Eyre goodness with me. She went home to her husband before the New Year, and we waited the last hour or so until midnight. Then we toasted with some apple cider. I even gave BooBear a drop of cider on my finger to taste. Then we stayed up with BooBear for a couple more hours until he finally went to sleep.

Today I decided to check my work email on a whim. And there was an email from one of my IB students asking for a letter of recommendation...for his college application that is due tomorrow. Man, he is really lucky...or has been praying. So, I wrote him a letter tonight and email him back. Sooo lucky. I usually don't check my work email over the break. And this is the first he has mentioned anything to me about wanting me to write a letter for him. Most students give you about a week's notice.