Vacation Time Is Here!

It is mid-winter break, and we get a week off. Very nice! I must say, though, that I did vote for next year's calendar having only a 4-day weekend for this President's Weekend, getting us out on a Friday rather then the following week on a Wednesday. But that option didn't win. Still, the break is nice!

On the last day before the break:

*It was Carol's last day. I did a Dance of Joy all day long. Some girls were in tears. I ignored the drama. Beunas suerte, chica.

*I sent home the 4 remaining goldfish from our original shipment of 20 that came as part of our "Living Environments" science unit. I never did get around to doing the science lessons with the fish. The beetles came, and the activities with them were easier and much more interesting. And those darkling beetles are sturdy little guys. The fish quickly died, and I hated all that death in my room. Definitely not good feng shui. Since our beetles are native, we took out the terrariums at the end of the day and set the beetles free. Much more fun than flushing dead fish down the toilet.

*Jose was concerned that he had lost my home address, so he wouldn't be able to write to me. "The vacation is only one week long," I told him. "When summer vacation comes, I'll make sure you have my address."

*Rahim is a quiet, mean boy. He's the little prince at home, and can do no wrong. In school, he does nothing. Nothing. He is getting all 1s, which is really all I can do grade-wise in elementary. As he moves on to middle school, those will become Fs. He's failing.

The night before Valentine's Day, I had told the kids that they were to go home and write a kind and specific compliment for each student in the class. I learned last year that I had to assign this as a homework piece, including the student putting their name at the top of the paper so I would know who wrote the compliments. That way I could make sure all compliments were appropriate. On Valentine's Day, I checked through the compliments kids had written. Everyone mostly did a good job; sometimes I had to have a student change a compliment like "...You wear nice shoes...," but overall the students did what I had asked.

Except Rahim. I get to his paper (totally surprised that he had actually completed a homework assignment and turned it in). The majority of the "compliments" that he had written went something like, "I like you because I don't know..." and then the quicker "IDK (again, I'm floored that he knew the correct way to spell KNOW)." Then I read a couple "compliments" that said words to the effect of, "You make me sick." And yet his name was proudly at the top of this paper.

So I took him out in the hall, and read him the riot act (whatever that is...). He would glance in the window of the door to see if anyone saw HIM being yelled at in the hallway, and actually smirked! Gad, that is infuriating. All of my "Teaching With Love and Logic" strategies fly out the window. I make him sit in the hall, give him a new student list and paper and make him do it over.

Then yesterday, at the end of the day as I was calling out "chance ticket" winners who get to choose something out of the prize box, I call a name and hear someone boo. Can you guess? Yes, my friend Rahim. I took him again in the hall, and told him I am so disgusted by his mean behavoir that I don't think I want to take him to 6th grade camp. And I don't think I want to. He is a quiet, sneaky, mean boy. Definitely not a good community member of our classroom.

I really dislike him, to quote Carol.