Day One Hundred Twenty-Five
Hey. Guess what? It's track season.
We've got a big, talented team and a mostly clear track, so we're off to a great start!
But, of course, before I went and coached my team, I taught my classes. They were very chill today. My freshmen were just reading their books, which meant I was reading my book, too. My seniors had a vocab quiz followed by reading about environmental and energy policymaking. Then they capped it off with some test review on their own. They're all accustomed to multi-tasking, so they kept up a conversation while they worked. They asked me for updates from the Senate re: banning TikTok (not much to report yet), chatted about sports, etc... Like I said: it was chill.
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Day One Hundred Twenty-Four
An unusually high number of my students were absent today- and for a variety of reasons- and, boy, did that change the dynamics in all of my classes. All four sections of Global Studies were quieter than usual, which is to be expected when there are five to seven fewer people in the room, and they were also super locked in on their reading. A bunch of students blew through their page goals for the day, including some of my more reluctant readers, which was awesome to see.
Even more surprising- one of my most reluctant students, period (for all manner of assignments, not just reading), asked to talk to me during the bell change, and said he wanted to improve his grade. So I identified some missing or incomplete assignments he should prioritize, he thanked me, and then sat and read for my whole class. Then, during flex block, he started chipping away at the stuff I'd told him to work on. By the end of the day, I had a couple things to grade, and I think that's solid progress.
I have no idea what caused a switch to flip, but I'm definitely all for it!
My APGOV class is small when they're all present, but today it was three students. Two had a sports thing, one had an appointment, the others were sick. But the ones who were there got to ask me all the questions they had about the US-China trade war, which they'd read about for homework, and then we watched some of the recent House debate over the bill that would ban TikTok if Bytedance doesn't divest it. We discussed that and its broader implications, as well as a few other things that have been happening recently. It was a really fun, relevant class, and I enjoyed teaching it a lot.
So it wasn't exactly the day I thought I'd have, but it was a good one!
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Day One Hundred Twenty-Three
I started my day in a PLC meeting with the other ninth grade advisors, which went so well that we finished in half an hour, and I got to spend the remainder of the time getting my grading done. Then I had my prep time do parent contacts, talk to Mrs. C about one of her students, and get a bit of lesson planning done.
That was nice.
Two out of my four sections of Global Studies were also nice- students read their books, we discussed their historical context, I fielded questions, everything was good. As for the other two sections? One was actually all right, I've just got a student who's taken to coming in everyday and announcing that he hates my class, which doesn't really hurt me but it does bring the mood in the room down. I've been ignoring it because what he really wants is a response, but I'm not sure if that's what I should continue to do. I definitely couldn't ignore the fourth class because a fight almost broke out at the end of the block. There were a handful of friends picking on each other, one of them crossed the line and said something that actually made another angry, various people stormed out actually getting made at each other- so I yelled really sharply (and effectively, since I so rarely raise my voice) for them to stop and separate, and then stood between them until the bell rang.
Whew!
APGOV was a welcome relief from that. I had one student who'd been absent, so she presented her project today, and then we went back to studying policymaking. I asked them about the articles they'd read for homework (related to economic policy). Then I pivoted to explaining national security policy: what it is, who has the power to do what, etc... They're reading about sending weapons to Ukraine, and about the US-China trade war.
Fun fact: every time I teach this stuff, I'm amused because students are fascinated by tariffs and subsidies. I don't know if it's because they're sweet summer children who never thought about how markets can be manipulated, or something else, but they always have a ton of questions. Can't complain about that, though!
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Day One Hundred Twenty-Two
Today Mrs. T had to come see me because the research some of my students were doing in Global Studies- same assignment as yesterday- got flagged for sensitive content. Said research is related to the books they're reading, and these are sometimes heavy books; topics include terrorism, white supremacy, child exploitation, PTSD, and so on. When Mrs. T saw the content of the searches, she was pretty sure it was all for an assignment, but, of course, she had to come confirm that. The timing was funny because she walked in right after I'd spoken to a student who thought his search (on a suicide bombing in Afghanistan) would get flagged. Like, I'd just said, "Someone will come and ask me if it's for an assignment, and I'll say yes."
So, y'know, they got to see that the process happens the way we say it does.
And in APGOV I fomented rebellion. A bit.
Students presented the projects they'd done on major Supreme Court Cases, one of which was Tinker v. Des Moines. After the student who was presenting explained the Supreme Court's ruling, another student said they should cite it in a effort to convince the school board to revise the dress code, an idea which the rest of the class thought was pretty solid. I don't know if they'll actually run with it, and I don't know if it'd be effective if they did. But.
I certainly didn't discourage it.
Presentations took exactly the amount of time we had in class before lunch. Then, after lunch, we started to get into how the branches interact to create policy. I lectured on economic policymaking, as a specific example, and gave them some articles to read (one on Covid stimulus, on on the Fed's interest rate hikes) to see what it's like in practice. We also took a bit of time to track the stuff going on with TikTok, which I'll come back to as I teach about natsec policy later this week. Seizing the teachable moment!
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Day One Hundred Twenty-One
One of the more amusing things about teaching both freshmen and seniors is when their paths cross in my classroom. Course selection is happening right now, and students need their current teachers to sign off on recommended courses for next year, so a lot of the freshmen came by during their lunches to ask me to sign their forms. That's when I'm teaching APGOV, so when they got to my door they just froze. Even when I ushered them in, they hovered near the front of the room, watching my seniors (who, at that point, were working on their Major Cases Projects and jamming to Ariana Grande's latest album) as if they were predatory animals who might strike at any moment.
In reality, since their projects are due tomorrow and they were locked in to get them done, I'm not sure they even really noticed the freshmen there.
Anyways.
The freshmen weren't my only visitors during that block. Both The Principal and Dean 1 came by to talk to me about a course selection issue related to economics (whether or not to open it to juniors as well as seniors), and get my opinion as department head so they could inform the rest of the faculty (I told them not next year due to staffing, but probably the year after). The Principal stuck around for a minute to ask the students about their projects, and chat about what they were learning, which I appreciated.
I signed a lot of course rec forms during Global Studies, too. I told students who were ready to get my signature to put their forms on their tables, and then went around and signed each one while they were reading. After they read for thirty minutes, I had them use the remainder of the block to do some research on events or issues that had come up in their books. The first time we did this (two weeks ago), I suggested topics; this time, I let them decide whether to continue with those or research something new (I'd say it was about 50-50). Then they shared what they'd learned, asked questions about things they still weren't clear about, asked questions about what other students had researched. It was cool.
I had a faculty meeting in the afternoon, and ended up talking to Mrs. T for a good long while afterwards, so then I just hung around until it was time for the winter sports awards. There was a big gathering in the auditorium first so that the major award winners could be announced, and then the teams went to different classrooms for the awarding of certificates and varsity letters. We had a great time celebrating our big, fun, record-breaking season. I'm not sure if I'll ever coach one quite like it again!
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Day One Hundred Twenty
It was my grandmother's birthday over the weekend, so I traveled south to celebrate with my gigantic extended family. I anticipated getting home late (accurate), so I took a personal day today. My students are all in the middle of things- books for the ninth graders, projects for the twelfth graders- so it was a fairly easy day for the sub.
At least, I didn't hear otherwise.
I did go up to the school in the evening for spring sports sign-ups. The Athletic Director started by giving a presentation to go over some general information before everyone broke off for team meetings. I was a little bit stung because he forgot to put my name on the slide that listed all the spring coaches, but then I reminded myself that my worth doesn't come from him anyhow. And Coach T, who noticed what'd happened, made sure to give me a really nice introduction during our team meeting. That was really nice.
And our team meeting was excellent because there are a ton of rookie athletes out for the team as well as a solid crew of veterans, and we're coming off a huge indoor season, and the energy is good. It's exciting. We're looking forward to a big season!
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Bonus Day
It's the end of Spring Fling Week, but winter decided to come back with a vengeance, so a snow storm hit right as tonight's dance was getting underway. Now, I knew it was going to snow, so I came prepared; I wore a cute dress and ballet flats, but I packed a sweatshirt, track pants, snow boots, and fuzzy unicorn socks (those got many compliments) to change into after the dance was over.
Chaperoning a dance that goes well is always a fun time, and this one went extremely well. I think the weather impacted turnout a bit, but the gym was still pretty full, and everyone seemed to have a good time. It was fun to see how they interpreted "semi-formal," as well. For the boys, it ranged from khakis and a hoodie to a full suit and tie. For the girls, it was everything from t-shirt dresses and leggings to backless bodycon dresses to poofy floral gowns. Green and purple were in, glitter was very in. And the most common dance moves seemed to be either jumping up and down or hitting the gritty. The exception was when "Cotton Eye Joe" played because they pretty much all know that dance, though I did see one girl adorably attempting to teach it to her date.
I was standing near the back of the gym, keeping on eye on the exterior doors, so it took a while for my students to realize I was there. Once they did, a bunch rushed over to say hi (and since we don't allow dress shoes in the gym, this was a rush over in socks on those hardwood floors, so it was a whole lot of skidding). That made my night.
So, yeah it was good. There were no incidents, just fun, and that's the way it should be!
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Day One Hundred Nineteen
I realize that I haven't written much this week about the fact that it's Spring Fling, so there have been dress-up themes everyday (today was color wars), fun after school events, and- of course- today there was a pep rally.
That meant shorter classes (35 minutes for the half block classes, 70 for the full block ones), and I spent the first two of mine (two sections of Global Studies) in an IEP meeting while Mrs. R covered for me. Students were just continuing to read their books, though, so it was easy for her. And the meeting was a really good one- super productive, super helpful- which was awesome. After that, I read with my other two sections of Global Studies, then tackled a few different subjects in APGOV. First, we watched and discussed SOTU highlights, then bounced back to the regularly scheduled lesson on the judicial branch. We talked Article III, Fed. 78, and Marbury v. Madison. I also introduced the project they'll be doing next week on some of the major cases that are required knowledge for the AP exam.
And that was that!
Students went to their advisories, and then were dismissed to the gym for the pep rally. Since they sit by class, and each class had a color to wear, it looked really cool. The Principal gave a hype speech, the band and drumline performed a few numbers, and there were a few hilarious games. There was a tic-tac-toe relay, the traditional and intense musical chairs (I played, of course, and finished a respectable fifth- after withstanding an attempt by a junior boy to pick my chair up out from under me and dump me, so I'm a legend now, heh), and a knockerball tournament.
Now, everything during a spirit week- dressing up, attending events, winning pep rally games- can earn points for one's class. It's expected that the seniors win, but- upset of the century- the freshmen actually won it this time! It was pretty fun to be sitting in their section when that was announced.
The week ends with a dance tomorrow night, which I said I'd chaperon. Stay tuned!
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Day One Hundred Eighteen
A thing about ninth graders- and I've written about this before- is that some of them are very bad at being quiet. Like, I could be in the middle of a sentence, and they'd still think it's a good time to turn to their friend across the room and yell something about Fortnite. But if one of my APGOV students is in the room making up a test? They all turn into mice- silently supportive mice who give encouraging golf claps and thumbs ups.
It's hilarious and also kind of sweet.
I mean, I still wish they wouldn't yell about Fortnite while I'm teaching, but we're working on that.
Another thing about ninth graders is that a lot of them go through massive growth spurts and have no idea how to handle their limbs, so when they decide to play fight in the hallway they end up clocking one another with fists and elbows totally unintentionally. That's why one of my students arrived at my door today with his hand over a bloody nose. He was actually going to casually walk to his seat and set his bag down before going to the nurse. I was like, "No, dude, I'll take your bag! Just go get that taken care of!"
Ahh, ninth grade...
The actual class was extremely chill, though: reading time, followed by some quick writing about the major events/issues being referenced in their books. APGOV was chill, too. I had a couple students who needed to finish up their tests from yesterday, so I made today's lesson "move when ready" style: finish the test as needed, log on Classroom and read my lecture slides about the judicial branch, read Fed. 78, we'll talk tomorrow.
Since I wasn't instructing and I grade at lightspeed, I was able to hand back their tests before the end of the block (obvious exception: the student who was absent, but came in during Global Studies and got my ninth graders to be silent in support of his test-taking efforts). That meant I got let them know right away how pleased I was about their results. I mean, they really crushed this test, and this the one students have typically struggled on the most, so something is going really, really well this semester.
Yay for that!
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Day One Hundred Seventeen
There was a medical situation in my hallway in the morning. Everyone's fine, nothing to worry about now, but that kind of thing is always stressful while it's happening. Also, since ninth graders sometimes lack situational awareness, they kept asking if they could go to the bathroom and getting very confused by me saying no (I usually don't) until one of their peers explained it. Then I'd see the dawning understanding on their faces.
In retrospect, that part's kind of funny.
Anyways.
Life and learning went on, as always, and I'm very happy to report that Global Studies went as well today as it did yesterday. I got some really clever found poems from my students, and it was great to see how creative they can be. Not all of them had shown that aspect of themselves off before this. Definitely keeping this lesson to use in future years!
What else?
Most of my current and former APGOV students came to my room during flex block to play Kahoot. The current students had a test today, so it was one last bit of studying for them; the former ones were there to the content in their heads for the AP exam. It's fun to have them in the room at once because it gets hilariously competitive. Also, a handful of my ninth graders were also in the room because they owe me work, and I think their exposure to this high-achieving, highly-motivated bunch of seniors was a good thing.
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Day One Hundred Sixteen
Last Friday I had my Global Studies students choose some lines from the books they're reading and write them on sticky notes. Today I had them get into groups, gave each group a stack of quotes, and had them create found poetry. I had each group share what they'd come up with, and then, since I had time, I also redistributed the quotes and had students create poems individually. The results of the group and individual work were both really cool. Here's one example:
We had many days of snow and rain.
Cypresses rose like the shadows of flames
from the crest of the hill.
My people believed that our land is not given to us by our ancestors. It is loaned to us by our children.
Yesterday I was playing hopscotch with my friends.
Today we are running from soldiers with guns.
When this country calls all, it’s calling you.
You don’t want to get caught in the dark alone.
Bad things happen at night.
You don’t get to claim the war as your own personal tragedy.
Not here.
This isn't something I'd ever done before, but it's definitely something I'll do again. It turned out so well! Also, the number of individual students who volunteered to read their pieces- or asked me to do it if they wanted to share but didn't want to read themselves- was unexpectedly high, particularly in my first section. More than half them did it.
So that was cool.
APGOV was cool, too, albeit more predictably so. I scored the FRQ practice students had done yesterday, and actually gave a bunch of 6/6 scores, which is terrific. They've got a test tomorrow, so we did some review AMA-style until lunch. After lunch, we tackled some of the practice questions on AP Classroom. I'm feeling good about how that went, and, hopefully, so are they!
What else? I had a leadership team meeting after school, which was actually super busy. We're starting to craft some new policies, it's program of studies time, there are several big events coming up in the next few weeks... So we had a lot to discuss! It's all good stuff, though.
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Day One Hundred Fifteen
I'm writing a late entry tonight because I was at my town's deliberative session, along with some of my APGOV students (observing as part of their political participation projects), and it ran for almost three hours. A deliberative session is something unique to NH local politics. The explainer on the state government's website says that it's a meeting at which there can be "explanation, discussion, debate and amendments to the proposed operating budget and warrant articles" before the ballot vote in April. The main reason this one ran so long was the school district's operating budget. The school board has made the decision to close one of the elementary schools in 2025, but there's a faction (look at me bringing Fed. 10 into everything) that wants the closure to happen this fall, so there was an attempt to amend the budget down so low that it'd be impossible to keep all elementary schools open. That was defeated, but not until after a lengthy and often acrimonious debate.
I think we all expected it'd be that kind of a meeting. Most of my Cacophonous friends and I had coffee this afternoon figuring we'd be up past our betimes.
Anyways.
The teaching day was pretty undramatic by comparison.
My APGOV students took a crack at argument FRQ writing. I played Steve Heimler's video explanation of how to do this FRQ, then we tried one as a whole class, and lastly I had them try one on their own. I haven't looked at them all yet, but the ones I did see looked solid. These students pick up really quickly, I'm discovering. That's definitely to their advantage.
My ninth graders continued reading their books, then we talked about what's happening to the main characters and what predictions they have so far. I've been pleasantly surprised by how many students want to share when we do these little discussions. Maybe it's because it's something they have practice with from past years, I don't know. It's good stuff, though. I did have to write up a handful of boys for trying to hang out in the school store instead of coming to class- and that's 95% about wanting to avoid reading- but that's the only issue I had. And I have some ideas for how to keep it from happening again.
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Bonus Day
I spent the day in Boston today because some of the sprinter girls were competing in the New England Championship at Reggie Lewis, which is one of the coolest indoor track facilities to get to race at. It's a big meet, and three of them were making their debut, so it was pretty exciting.
They didn't do quite as well as they'd wanted, even though one did tie her school record in the 55m dash and sprint to a top-15 finish. She'd wanted to make the finals, and, as a relay, they'd wanted another PR. They came close, but it's tough to sustain that level of speed over a long season, especially after laying it all out there to win a state title. They still ran really well. The Head Coach and I are proud of them, and, ultimately, I think they went home happy.
And, I mean, it really was a great season.
Only one of them is graduating, so here's hoping we'll be back in Boston next year, too!
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Day One Hundred Fourteen
Today, I was wearing this fabulous shirt from Wrath Bearing Tee.
i paired it with one of my favorite cardigans (black, racing stripes, stars embroidered on the sleeves) and some baggy jeans because Fridays are dress-down days. Lots of my colleagues loved the look, but having one of the senior girls stop me in the hall to tell me, "Your outfit is SUCH a vibe, Miss M!!!" was pretty much the best part of my morning.
But the teaching was pretty great, too. My Global Studies students read their books and I checked their progress. Then I gave them each two sticky notes; on one, they had to write a really powerful line or two that they'd read, and on the other they had to write a line from a random page (I had a student in each section pick a number between 1-40 and that was the page). We're going to use those to create some found poetry next week. We'll see how that goes!
My APGOV students have papers due by 11:59PM (assessing the efficacy of one of their representatives in Congress), so a lot of them came into my flex block today to have me proofread rough drafts, which was good. During class itself, I did a lesson about the federal bureaucracy, how bureaucratic rule-making and adjudication work, etc, etc... Then I had them read some articles- one about the development of TV rations, one about Rex Tillerson losing his position is Secretary of State, and one about the train derailment in Ohio last year- in order to apply what they'd learned to some real scenarios. We talked about each article at length, then turned to news about the budget deal since we've been following that, too. They had a few minutes at the end of the block to make paper revisions and/or play the fighter pilot game they're addicted to on their chromebooks, and that was that!
I puttered in my classroom for a few minutes after the afternoon bell, cleaned all the tables with Lysol wipes (a Friday routine), made sure my boards were set up for Monday and my materials were posted to classroom. Then Mr. F came by, and we walked out to the parking lot together. It sounded like he had a pretty great teaching day, too, and that's the best way to go into the weekend!
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Day One Hundred Thirteen
I had a lot of meetings today. Only one of them- the usual Thursday morning PLC meeting- was expected.
That one wasn't a particularly eventful meeting either; I just had a handful of things to go over with the department, and some of the guys had questions about course selection and the program of studies, and then we should have gone to do our curriculum work, but we spent an additional ten minutes or so joking about which one of us should apply to be the next superintendent (the current one is retiring at the end of this year), and what our leadership would mean for the district. While that was going on, The Principal asked to see me to follow-up on a conversation we'd had about leveling and differentiation, so we agreed to meet at 8:15.
When did I actually get to the meeting? 8:19.
I got sucked into answering emails and lost track of the time, then bolted out of my classroom when I realized it. Luckily, The Principal wasn't bothered; he and Dean 1 were still wrapping up a separate discussion anyhow. Once they were done, I stepped into the office, and we had a really productive meeting about our original topic as well as some other things involving my department. As we were wrapping up, he asked how I'm doing and how my teaching year's been going. I told him I'm fine- always am- but I appreciated the check-in.
When I returned to my classroom, I had a message from Mr. N asking if we could meet to discuss some future English and social studies interdisciplinary work, but by that time the block was almost over, so we ended up having a lunch meeting instead. We're going to apply for money to do summer work, but we also want to get the ball rolling during upcoming teacher workshop days, if possible. It's kind of fun that we've gone from being mentor and mentee to both being department heads, and getting to make these kinds of plans together.
And in between all these meetings, I taught my classes!
In APGOV, students smashed a vocab quiz, then some MCQ practice, and we wrapped up my multi-day lesson on the presidency and vice presidency by discussing relevant constitutional amendments (12th, 20th, 22nd, 25th). What's next? All about the bureaucracy; I teased this by asking them to hypothetically order a pizza (they told me all the toppings they wanted) and then guess how many federal agencies were involved in regulating that pizza (something like a dozen). That was amusing.
In Global Studies, students continued reading their books, and then I had them get into groups to share what they're reading, what interesting plot points they've gotten to so far, and what they learned from the background research they did last class. After that, we had a whole class discussion; I asked them to tell. me what their classmates had shared with them, what they'd shared themselves, or both. That went WAY better than I thought it was going to go. Like, I figured it would be decent, but it was actually really cool and some students who don't typically participate in class discussions put their hands up for this one. Hooray for that!
After school, I proctored the citizenship test for any seniors still needing to pass it. Every social studies teacher gives the test monthly during the school day, but it's good to give other opportunities, too, because some students are taking their social studies courses online, or they're not in one of our courses till next quarter, or they've failed previous attempts. It took longer than I'd thought it would because one of the test-takers was a former student, and we got to talking as I graded her test, so I missed track practice. I'd told The Head Coach that was a possibility, though.
The team will be at New England's on Saturday. One last meet for this indoor season!
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Day One Hundred Twelve
Today was one of those days where several of my former students came by my classroom. Some of them had questions, some just wanted to say hi. That's always nice.
I might've seen even more of them if I'd been in my room during my prep block, but I was downstairs for most of it, talking to Mr. B and Ms. L about union stuff. There's a lot riding on Monday's deliberative session, so we were talking about how to encourage people to attend, and that kind of thing.
My ninth graders were reading and then doing research (same lesson as yesterday, just with my other two sections of students this time), which meant I was reading and then helping them as needed. Meantime, my APGOV students and I started class by checking the news about the budget process, then went onto the regularly scheduled lesson. They'd learned about the powers of the presidency yesterday, so today I had them read Federalist 70 and explain Hamilton's argument as to why said powers were vested in a single executive. They grasped it really easily, so that's awesome.
I didn't have a ton to do after school- answered a couple emails, graded the ninth graders' research, drafted the agenda for tomorrow's PLC meeting- but Mr. F and I spent some time just chatting. We've both been super busy, and this semester we don't have the same prep time, so it'd been a while since we'd caught up with one another. It was nice!
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Day One Hundred Eleven
It's Tuesday, so I taught half of my Global Studies students for full blocks, and I'll teach the other half tomorrow. That change-up in the schedule took some getting used to when the semester first started, but I like that it slows down the pace of my day a bit.
Students read for the first thirty minutes of the block, which I knew would be a challenge for some students, but I figured I'd go for it. And, happily, it worked! It definitely pushed at their academic stamina, but they were able to do it. Then, afterwards, I had them research specific topics related to their books because building up their background knowledge will improve their reading comprehension and reveal some of the connections to other things they've been learning (I do keep saying that most things in current/recent history are linked to colonialism, the World Wars, and/or the Cold War).
The coolest moment was when one of the students, who is reading Now Is the Time for Running, asked me to verify something he'd learned about Robert Mugabe's dictatorship. When I did, he connected it back to one of the scenes he'd read in the book that day, and told me all about what had happened to the characters. Why was that so cool? This is a student who'd been insistent that reading a whole book would be too hard, and he couldn't do it. But there he is excelling.
Also nice: the students who come say hi even though they don't have class until tomorrow. They just want to tell me to have a good day, and I tell them to do the same, of course!
As for my APGOV students, we discussed current political events: the looming shutdown (and the possibility of cake), the ongoing presidential election, etc... I did a quick lecture on how presidential elections work- and fielded many questions about primaries, caucuses, NH's FITN status, and so on. We also went over the powers given to the president (enumerated and implied) in preparation for tomorrow's class, which is going to be all about Federalist 70. Clearly, I am transitioning from teaching about the legislative branch to teaching about the executive.
I was supposed to have a leadership team meeting after school today, but The Principal canceled it- I guess a lot of folks can't make it- so I went for coffee with Mrs. T instead. Her day was a lot more hectic than mine, so it was nice to end it by sitting out in unseasonably nice weather, enjoying some lattes and a chat!
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