8th graders really need to stay in middle school

Oh, the happenings at Glen Oaks High School. Let's see, yesterday morning we went on a lockdown. My class was brought out into the hallway, lined up, their shoes searched, all patted down while police officers and a police dog searched the classroom. I assume they were looking for drugs, hence the lock down. Of course it wasn't my precious 8th graders. But for once it actually wasn't the 8th graders.

I've started working half my planning period in the office. Yesterday I was calling parents to inform them that his or her precious son or daughter has missed or is close to missing more than the 10 state-law mandated days you can miss for school. It was incredibly awkward because when they wanted me to look up information or answer questions all I could tell them was that I was just a teacher doing grunt work for the front office, and they would have to call back later to the front office. But for real, it wasnt that bad and it got me out of my classroom for an hour. Today, something about the computer I was using wasn't working, so I just basically hung out in the front office for an hour. It's just such a nice atmosphere in there: almost everyone that works there is younger (in their early 30s), and all the students that come through are, for the most part, high schoolers. It makes me really wish I was teaching high school because they're actually like real human beings (whereas comparatively my 8th graders, I'm quite convinced, are certainly another mutant form of life). This is where I came to the final conclusion that 8th graders really don't belong here. A high school is for high schoolers, not semi-matured barely-teenagers. 8th graders have enough angst already - someone obviously was on some serious crack to think it was a good idea to move them from the top of the heirarchy (what they would be in middle school) to lower than the lowest in high school. Come on Glen Oaks, you should have known that was asking for a hormone raging-induced disaster.

On the up-side, my classroom is starting to look like a real classroom (at least in the physical sense). When I was at institute, they tell us all these things we need to do like making sure our classroom is nice and inviting and our walls are filled with student work. And I sat there through the whole thing and nodded my head in agreement, thinking "well, freaking duh. who wouldn't do that?" Somewhere between the unknown of the first days of school, the frustration and confusion before I got my program running, and the latest battle just to keep my head above water between getting my program to run properly and managing a classroom, I basically convinced myself that 8th graders are much to old for cutesy wall decorations, and could care less about anything on the walls. I convinced myself this despite the little voice in the back of my head screaming DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ANYTHING THE WONDERFUL LAUREN MAYFIELD SAID TO YOU THIS SUMMER??? Yes, my CS was right because finally my walls are starting to take a little life and my students are noticing (They especially like the birthday calendar on the back wall and the fact that we celebrated our first birthdays of the year today!)

Here are some posters that have been giving my classroom a little life:

My classroom calendar / birthday calendar on which I put important dates and student birthdays.


I made this poster last night. A TFA alum / former Read 180 teacher gave me the idea to make a poster for each strategy we work on in class; this workshop is sequence of events. A main idea poster to come soon from last workshop.

I'm still struggling to keep my head above water with everything, but at least my classroom won't look like crap when I go down (as long as it happens before school hours, not after. After my students have gotten their hands on the classroom, it's another matter).