Grading

1. I'm not really sure how it took me this long in the year to relize the importance of writing rubrics (not for my students - I already knew it was important for them). It makes grading SO MUCH QUICKER. I am breezing through these tests when I have everything set up before. 2. Like noted above, I am currently grading these tests from the workshop we just finished, and I am so impressed at how much better my students' writing has gotten. For one, when the questions asks for a certain number of sentences, they give them to me. And complete ones at that! They are pulling information from the text to support their answer, too. It only took a whole year, but my 8th graders can now answer constructed response questions with success!

My anthem for the rest of the school year - New Soul by Yael Naim

I'm a new soul I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

See I'm a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate? try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make

This is a happy end
Cause you don't understand
Everything you have done
Why's everything so wrong

This is a happy end
Come and give me your hand
I'll take you far away

I'm a new soul I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

Will the real Ms. Duncan please stand up?

So I was given the wrong email address for one of my parents (unknowingly to both parties, of course), and the following is the email I got back from the "wrong" Ms. Duncan:

 Ms. Gauthier, I’m afraid that you have the wrong e-mail address. If this was my child, I would definitely do more than just talk to him (because I’m old school), but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I hope you are able to contact the Ms. Duncan you are seeking and that she can help you solve this problem. I know it takes patience and perseverance to be a teacher. I applaud your efforts and wish you well. 

At first I was a little embarrased about this mistake, but after reading it over again, I decided it was a wonderful treat from an honest mistake. I hope the real Ms. Duncan responds in a similar fashion (yes, I do have the right email now!)

And we have reconnection

With my seemingly increasing waist-line, I have been finding solace solely with my students:

Student 1: "Oooh, Ms. Gauthier, you be getting big."
Me: "Um, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Student 1: "It's a good thing. You're too skinny!"
Student 2: "Yeah, you look good."

I know I haven't posted in a while, and this may seem like a strange post to reconnect, but I've been rolling this around in my head all day. I was wondering why my students don't think my moderatly skinny look is good, or mores-, why a more round shape is better.

I have two theories:

1) It's a cultural thing. Black women may just be more naturally curvy, therefore it's a more attractive feature to have a belly. See, Venus of Willendorf:


She was a symbol of fertility and beauty to her culture because that's just what women looked like.

It makes sense. Big or small, my students seem to overwhelmingly like who they are, and loudly profess they would not change an inch of their body for anyone (re-asserting my belief that Read 180 was not designed for my demographic; we just did a unit on peer pressure, and one of the articles was about self-esteem and how a lot of girls go on extreme diets because they don't like how they look. It went RIGHT OVER their heads. None of them could believe anyone would actually do that).

OR

2) This body type is not necessarily inherent to the culture, but attraction to this body type has grown out of the recent diet of low-income families. I see what my students eat - it's no wonder why they think my naturally skinny physique is something to be gawked at. If a whole group of people ate what they ate (they actually remarked this morning, in a dicussion on healthy foods to eat before the Leap test, that a snickers bar was a high-protein food) all the women would be curvey with a carb/sugar/fat-induced belly. Not saying it's their fault in any way, no one has taught them (or their parents, probably) what is healthy. Heck no one has really taught children, low-income or high-income what a healthy meal looks like. However, a high-income community may be over-eating and poorly eating, they still ashere to the notion that skinny is beautiful. No exceptions. Whereas my students love and accept their bodies the way they are, fat or naturally skinny. And that leads me to the question: which is better - adhereance to some false idea that supermodel skinny is the only "right" way to be, or loving your body, unhealthy or not? Both are unhealthy, in their own ways.

Alas, I have digressed from my point, and I apologize. However, I have been reading Octavio Paz's "Labryinth of Solitude." Pure philosophy. I can't help this.